BLOGGING A DEAD HORSE

BADH podcast

2011-11-07T22:30:00.001+01:00

BADH MUSIC FOR BADH PEOPLE:

Yup, I made a podcast exclusively for this blog. One and a half hour with some of the finest tracks in the history of the genre, I tried to balance the classics with the more obscure stuff, though some of the more obvious numbers by usual suspects like PISTOLS, THE CLASH, THE JAM, DEAD KENNEDYS, THE SAINTS, HEARTBREAKERS etc. were left out for this time. I guess my compilation somehow reflects my recent soft spot for 2 generation US bands, especially LA / California outfits, but, as you will hear, I still remain true to the legacy of their forerunners, pre-punksters like PATTI SMITH, the best 77 generation UK bands, and of course also the few but very strong Scandinavian bands worth mentioning and feature in the major league of this musical expression. You will find a direct link here.. Enjoy.

Track Listing

01 - The Germs - The Other Newest One
02 - Patti Smith - Ask The Angles
03 - The Avengers - We Are the One
04 - The Victims - Television Addict
05 - Generation X - Ready Steady Go
06 - The Weirdos - Solitary Confinment
07 - The Ramones - Glad To See You Go
08 - The Outcasts - Justa Nother Teenage Rebel
09 - Bad Brains - Big Takeover
10 - The Users - Sick Of You
11 - Ebba Grön - Stockholms Pärlor
12 - Sissy Killers - Sissy Faggots
13 - Anti-Pasti - No Government
14 - The Undertones - Hypnotised
15 - Wayne County - Paranoia Paradise
16 - The Dictators - Faster & Louder
18 - Chatterbox - Forgotten Heroes
19 - X - Johnny Hit & Run Pauline
20 - Vice Squad - Stand Strong Stand Proud
21 - Lost Kids - Cola Freaks
22 - TSOL - Superficial Love
23 - Sado-Nation - I m Trouble
24 - Kjøtt - Primitiv
25 - The Dickies - Got It At the Store
26 - Circle Jerks - Red Tape
27 - The Adolescents - No Way
28 - Liliedugg - Something Behind
29 - The Descendents - Sick-o-Me
30 - Black Flag - Paralyzed
31 - The Crowd - Can t Talk
32 - Pennywise - Anyone Listening?
33 - Adam & The Ants - Plastic Surgery
34 - The Adverts - Drowning Men
35- Siouxsie & The Banshees - Jigsaw Feeling

THE FILTH AND THE FURY

2011-07-04T17:34:00.012+02:00

SEX PISTOLS

At Bill Grundy Today show 1976

MEDIA BLITZ: First frontpage of punk.

The first SEX PISTOLS public appearance, at the Today show on BBC, 1. December 1976, was a most significant one. Not only for the band and their short lived success, but for the entire history of punk.

The hype of 1977, could never have happened without this 2 minute outrage, live on national television, or the other key event in the media blitz around the PISTOLS, the Jubilee Boat Trip in 1977, though that is material for another post(soon to come). The video(see below) should speak well for itself. The public reactions were overwhelming, a truck driver even kicked in his brand new TV set in a spontaneous response to the inappropriate vocabulary he was exposed to in the middle of his dinner:“I don t want this filthy language in my own living room”, the truck driver later told the press.

Bill Grundy, the host of the show and target for the verbal assault of Steve Jones, did never again host a show on BBC or fully recover in the public eye. This was the first time the term punk was used in British mass media, which spun off yet another story, an interview with “Siouxsie – a punk shocker”, which kept the debate kind of hot until the next and much bigger media stunt came around.

Siouxsie Is A Punk Shocker

SEX PISTOLS (seated l-r): Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock, Paul Cook. "BROMLEY CONTIGENT” (standing behind l-r): Simon Barker, Steve Severin, 'Simone' and Siouxsie Sioux. [“Bromley Contigent” was the ever present group of diehard followers of PISTOLS, counting among others Billy Idol, Sue Catwoman, Jordan and more in addition to those already mentioned above.] The last person, to the far right, is "the fucking rotter", host Bill Grundy.

THE INTERVIEW

GRUNDY: (To camera) They are punk rockers. The new craze, they tell me. Their heroes? Not the nice, clean Rolling Stones... you see they are as drunk as I am... they are clean by comparison. They're a group called the Sex Pistols, and I am surrounded by all of them...
JONES: (Reading the autocue) In action!
GRUNDY: Just let us see the Sex Pistols in action. Come on kids...

[ Film of the Sex Pistols live is shown. Then the camera returns to Grundy.]

GRUNDY: I am told that that group (hits his knee with sheaf of papers) have received forty thousand pounds from a record company. Doesn't that seem, er, to be slightly opposed to their anti-materialistic view of life?
MATLOCK: No, the more the merrier.
GRUNDY: Really?

[The band and the group of fans stood behind begin waving arms around, and passing cups of coffee back and forth)

MATLOCK: Oh yeah.
GRUNDY: Well tell me more then.
JONES: We've fuckin' spent it, ain't we?
GRUNDY: I don't know, have you?
MATLOCK: Yeah, it's all gone.
GRUNDY: Really?
MATLOCK: Down the boozer.
GRUNDY: Really? Good Lord! Now I want to know one thing...
MATLOCK: What?
GRUNDY: Are you serious or are you just making me, trying to make me laugh?
MATLOCK: No, it's all gone. Gone.
GRUNDY: Really?
MATLOCK: Yeah.
GRUNDY: No, but I mean about what you're doing.
MATLOCK: Oh yeah.
GRUNDY: You are serious?
MATLOCK: Mmm.
GRUNDY: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms have all died...
ROTTEN: They're all heroes of ours, ain't they?
GRUNDY: Really... what? What were you saying, sir?
ROTTEN: They're wonderful people.
GRUNDY: Are they?
ROTTEN: Oh yes! They really turn us on.
JONES: But they're dead!
GRUNDY: Well suppose they turn other people on?
ROTTEN: (Under his breath) That's just their tough shit.
GRUNDY: It's what?
ROTTEN: Nothing. A rude word. Next question.
GRUNDY: No, no, what was the rude word?
ROTTEN: Shit.
GRUNDY: Was it really? Good heavens, you frighten me to death.
ROTTEN : Oh alright, Siegfried...
GRUNDY: (Turning to Siouxsie and friends) What about you girls behind?
MATLOCK: He's like yer dad, inni he, this geezer?
GRUNDY: Are you, er...
MATLOCK: Or your granddad.
GRUNDY: (to Siouxsie Sioux) Are you worried, or are you just enjoying yourself?
SIOUXSIE: Enjoying myself.
GRUNDY: Are you?
SIOUXSIE: Yeah.
GRUNDY: Ah, that's what I thought you were doing.
SIOUXSIE: I always wanted to meet you.
GRUNDY: Did you really?
SIOUXSIE: Yeah.
GRUNDY: We'll meet afterwards, shall we? (Sioux does a camp pout)
JONES: You dirty sod. You dirty old man!
GRUNDY: Well keep going, chief, keep going. Go on, you've got another five seconds. Say something outrageous.
JONES: You dirty bastard!
GRUNDY: Go on, again.
JONES: You dirty fucker! (Laughter from the group)
GRUNDY: What a clever boy!
JONES: What a fucking rotter.
GRUNDY: Well, that's it for tonight. The other rocker Eamonn, and I'm saying nothing else about him, will be back tomorrow. I'll be seeing you soon, I hope I'm not seeing you [the band] again. From me, though, goodnight.

[ The signature tune plays and the credits start. Rotten looks at his watch, Jones stands up and starts to gyrate in time to the music. Grundy yells an off-mic 'Oh shit!' to himself ]

THE FEMME FATALE & OTHER HEROINES of PUNK

2011-06-18T06:07:00.119+02:00

V I O L E N T F E M M E S

She's going to smile to make you frown, what a clown
Little boy, she's from the street
Before you start, you're already beat
She's gonna play you for a fool, yes it's true…

“Femme Fatale” ( VELVET UNDERGROUND, 1967 )

Besides being the title of a classic VELVET UNDERGROUND song, allegedly the first of many gloomy homages to the infamous Edie Sedgwick, Femme Fatale is an French expression which has functioned as theme and leitmotif in cultural jargon since the birth of communication and arts. Needless to say, you will find them in your real life as well, and the history of mankind has seen many of the likes of this dangerous but oh so seductive woman, from Cleopatra to the stand out example of punk, Nancy Spungen.

Femme Fatale is a term derived from several ancient mythological, religious or historical archetypes, such as Lilith, Salome, Aphrodite, the sirens, Cleopatra and the list goes on. She is the dragon lady (THE GERMS) that thrives on her seductive powers on men, to the point of fatality. The man becomes a victim, trapped in an obsessive relation he fails to get out of before it is too late, which gives femme fatale a heroic cling to the term. She can also become a victim herself, of course, an anti-heroine, and we are soon to learn a classic example of this type.

As an antagonist, she teases her prey into the cave with lips that later will execute an icecols kiss of death, metaphorically or literally speaking. A more outdated synonymous word for the fatale woman in US slang is Vamp, which of course is short for Vampire. The original vampire used as model for the later very successful Count Dracula (1897 novel by Bram Stoker), was in fact a woman by the name of Carmilla, as we meet her in the 1872 Gothic novella by the same name, written by Sheridan Le Fanu. A lesbian one, in fact, in her choice of prey to suck dry of the bodily fluids.

Then again, the novel was heavily inspired by the real life story of the Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614), who allegedly was one out of 5 collaborators who sexually abused, tortured and killed 650 girls, though only to get convicted for 80 of them. She also had a bloody eccentric spa routine, a Spa-bath Bloody Spa-bath, if we were to believe one of many myths that of course pops up in the aftermath of any story as extreme or macabre. she had a liking for regular baths in the blood of young virgin girls. Using the blood of other, taking their lives, all for the sake of preserving her youth as long as possible, and with this element in mind, it should be easy to see the parallels to the fictional vampire woman with a liking for fresh blood. But when Carmilla, by the pen of Bram Stoker, transformed into the masculine counterpart, Count Dracula or Nosferatu, we know for sure that he took the key elements of Carmilla (thus Bathory) and applied them to a soul brother of “the Blood Countess” that lived 100 years earlier, Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia(1431–1476), nicknamed “the impaler” for his habit of impaling all enemies, also calling himself “Dracul” and ruling Transylvania. The latter proved to be somehow more popular fictional concept, perhaps because it also depicts, in its own twisted way, a heterosexual love story. Bram Stokers novel has spun off countless movie adaptations through the entire history of film ( Murnau, Dreyer, Browning, Herzog and Coppola have all their respective versions), in addition to the many contemporary series, like True Blood or Buffy The Vampire Slayer..

If the world of fiction lost a mighty prototype of the female villain to the opposite sex in the case of the vampire, new types came in, not at least in the cinematic universe. Film Noir is full of them, in addition to the many thrillers with a pinch of eroticism, think Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven). Of course you will find this figurine in your real life as well, often more than what is good for your health and heart. They are all around you, the (anti)heroines and ruthless dominatrix's, women that will make you suffer under a treatment your constitution don t seem built to resist. Most love stories, however, do not turn out as bad as the one your about to hear.

NANCY SPUNGEN

The most infamous liaisons dangereuses in rock history, is arguably the juicy controversies of the short lived bad romance of SID VICIOUS(ex-THE BANSHEES,FLOWERS OF ROMANCE) of SEX PISTOLS and punk rock groupie NANCY SPUNGEN. Love kills, as JOE STRUMMER said in his musical contribution to the 1986 motion picture Sid & Nancy.

Nancy Spungen (1958-78) was the ultimate Femme Fatale of punk in the strictest sense of the term. Seductive, abusive and (self) destructive, in other words, fatale company for the weak hedonistic soul. A heroin(e) of rock n roll suicide. She started working as a stripper in NY in the early 70s and hung around all the bands she was into, AEROSMITH, NEW YORK DOLLS and THE RAMONES, following them on tour, groupie style. She was given the title “Starfucker” by NME in an retrospective article in 1986, thanks to her reputation of sleeping her way through the upper leagues of pre punk / original punk. Spungen was some kind of working class Edie Sedgwick , with an ordinary face, jumping from one bed to the other, strung out on booze and other stimulants.

The story has it she followed JERRY NOLAN and JOHNNY THUNDERS when they went over sea with THE HEARTBREAKERS, hoping she might get lucky with either one of them. Both rejected her, all too familiar with her reputation in NY. Instead she ended up bumping into SEX PISTOLS, hitting hard on JOHNNY ROTTEN ( who rejected her…”sex is borrrring” ) so she had to settle for the new bassist, SID VICIOUS. They moved together after a couple of days and took on a rather destructive path, the mainline down to China White. Both of them confirmed in various interviews that VICIOUS had no smack habit before SPUNGEN entered his life. After all, she came straight out of the THUNDERS camp, where everybody lived on a Chinese Rock (“Chinese Rocks”, THE HEARTBREAKERS). Heroin was no hit in the UK punk scene yet, though I presume VICIOUS probably was not too hard to convince.

The “Bonnie & Clyde of punk” reached the end of their hell ride at the infamous Chelsea Hotel in NY, where the couple rented a room to house their non stop drug bender. A chemical vacation, kind of. On October the 12th, 1978, Spungen was found dead in their room, stabbed to death by a hunting knife SID got himself after seeing DEE DEE RAMONE give a similar one to STIV BATORS of THE DEAD BOYS. VICIOUS claimed he could not recall a single second, but that did not hold through in court and he got charged with murder. He died of an overdose heroin the 2th of February, 1979.

SUE CATWOMAN

Sue Catwoman (Soo Lucas), was a strange figurine in the ´77 punk scene of London. She became one of the first British female punk icons, entirely based on her style and haircut (thus “cat woman”) and the fact that she hung around some key members of the inner circle of punk in London. If she was a good friend of the likes she posed together with on some well known photos and videos from that time(1976-77) from 100 Club or Roxy Club, SIOUXSIE SUE(BANSHEES) and JOHNNY ROTTEN(SEX PISTOLS), never became clear. She was written into McLarens The Great Rock n Roll Swindle(1980), but declined the offer of playing the part herself, so McLaren went for an actress instead (Judy Croll). Unlike many other personalities that made a remarkable profile in the 77 London punk cast, Sue Catwoman disappeared as fast as she popped up, the only true embodiment of the original punk spirit. She was neither involved with the creative side of punk, nor any other activity that kept her visible during the transition from post punk to new wave.

PATTIE SMITH

PATTI SMITH (1946-), an eruptive musical and poetical genius of the rare kind, had a huge impact on punk. Before founding the band in 1974, she wrote rock journalism for Rolling Stone Magazine etc and also had a part, together with WAYNE COUNTY, in Jackie Curtis play Femme Fatale. Her talent as a musician came to show almost immediately, on the single “Hey Joe”/“Piss Factory” of´74. As soon as the JOHN CALE produced debut album Horses hit the marked in 1975, there was no further debate on her extraordinary gift for both music and words.

Heavy inspired by bohemian Paris, art, Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud and Charles Baudelaire as well as Walt Whitman, William Blake and of course the long list of Beat poets, especially the influential William S. Burroughs, whom she had a close relation to during his senior years. SMITH was the sort of female counterpart to TOM VERLAINE of TELEVISION, a Beatnik intellectual who gave the language of rock n roll a fresh new dimension. As with TELEVISION, the influence of ROLLING STONES was present in vast amounts. Her voice is like the female punk version of JAGGER, like the one of DAVID JOHANSEN of NEW YORK DOLLS, but with more temperament as well as sophistication . A revival of the basic and raw rock, but in a way that opened for growing possibilities.

The cover shot of Horses, by her beloved friend Robert Mapplethorpe, was an iconographic landmark, representing a new and daring sense of femininity. It avoids traditional stereotypes like the bimbo or the masculine lesbian, simply because SMITH is depicted too vague and mystic, in style and environment, to suit such an affirmative and conventional thinking. A true bohemian. a new kind of woman, leaning against the wall in a gentle way, with a pinch of androgyny. Dressing like a man, in the most power strutting clothing of them all, the three piece suit. Mapplethorpes cover picture reflects the substance of her integrity, both as artist and woman. That black and white picture of SMITH, the outlines of a calm and proud female visionary in menswear, shows the artist in a way that goes perfect along with what she is all about.

You are bound to respect the person on the Horses cover, that confident pose in a dense minimal setting, with her as the only motif. The look of an artist artist that places the heart felt , non compromising expression in the center of her work. Independent and free spirited, not trusting the support of neither vain menagerie of female fashion and make up nor just being the girlfriend in shadow of her rock star man, first Alan Lanier of BLUE OYSTER CULT and then, far more important to punk, the legendary guitarist of MC5, Fred “Sonic” Smith, who became the blueprint of THE RAMONES look. I will give the very last word to another woman who´s had considerable influence on redefining a new feminism, alongside other "intellectual superstars" like Susan Sontag, Christina Hoff Sommers, Judith Butler and Gloria Steinem. Though, due to her radical controversial thinking, she remains the black sheep of that symposium.

In 1975, Arista Records released Horses, the first rock album by New York bohemian poet Patti Smith. The stark cover photo, taken by someone named Robert Mapplethorpe, was devastatingly original. It was the most electrifying image I had ever seen of a woman of my generation. Now, two decades later, I think that it ranks in art history among a half-dozen supreme images of modern woman since the French Revolution.

CAMILLE PAGLIA

TO BE CONTINUED:

TINA WEYMOUTH / SIOUXSIE SUE / DEBBI HARRY / GAYE ADVERT / VIVIENE WESTWOOD / LORNA DOOM / POLY STYRENE / PAULINE MURRAY / JORDAN / JOAN JETT / ARI UP / EVE LIBERTINE / JOY de VIVRE / PENELOPE HOUSTON /JORDAN / SUZIE QUATRO / BEKI BONDAGE / DEBBI JUVENILE / CHERRY VANILLA / GEM(GILL WESTON) / LINDA ASHBY / KIRA ROESSLER / JANNE LUNDBERG / NINA HAGEN / KATE PUSSI PUNK SVANHOLM / KATJA OSVOLD / YVONNE DUCKSWORTH / ALICE BAG / ELANA RITCHIE / TOYAH /

SEEIN R.E.D

2011-06-12T16:24:00.106+02:00

ROLF EINARS DATATIPS (1989-92)

ROLF EINARS DATATIPS

(1989-92)

Rolf Einar Larsen: Voice.
Trond Nørbech: Beat.
Tor Helge "Tømme" Kvamme: Bass.
Anders Wimpelman: Guitar and backing vocals.

What rose from the ashes of my very first band, the previously posted BELSENFANGAN, was a brand new project featuring 3/4 of the members. I picked up the guitar instead of the microphone, and we got our friend Rolf Einar, a fellow punk enthusiast, in to take care of my former job.

While ´FANGAN was well rooted in a original ´77 punk tradition, ROLF EINARS DATATIPS, as we unpretentiously dubbed the new project, sought out to find a bit more updated style of punk. Personally, my taste of punk at that time revolved around the second generation of UK punk rock, theCRASS, CONFLICT, SUBHUMANS, DISCHARGE, VICE SQUAD, ENGLISH DOGS, CHAOS UK etc, though it slowly drifted further into faster, more aggressive stuff; from DISORDER, ELECTRO HIPPIES, INFEST, MINOR THREAT, VOID, THE FAITH, IRON CROSS, YOUTH BRIGADE to a lot of grind core, NAPALM DEATH, S.O.B, SORE THROAT, INTENSE DEGREE, EXTREME NOISE TERROR and HERESEY, as well as some crossover stuff, D.R.I, THE STUPIDS, ADRENALIN O.D, THE ACCUSED, CORROSION OF CONFORMITY, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, S.O.D, VERBAL ABUSE and late AGNOSTIC FRONT. Needless to say, we were also into all varieties of metal at the time, especially SLAYER, POSSESSED, DEATH, SODOM, TESTAMENT, EXODUS, CARCASS, CADAVER, ANTHRAX, CELTIC FROST and KREATOR.

I remember all of us being heavily into the Scum album by NAPALM DEATH, and thus we were aspired to turn up the tempo as well as distortion and the general level of noise. Some of us were newborn anarchists at the time, replacing the pure nihilism of ´77 with a growing political correctness. As the one responsible for all of the lyrics, I took a lot of cues from CRASS, anti-religion, anti-authority,anti-corporate, as well as traditional 80s hardcore punk sloganism, typically promoting an anti-fascist message. The lyrics were in the native Norwegian, and my attention thus also turned towards the many great 1st and 2nd generation Norwegian HC punk, BETONGHYSTERIA, SVART FRAMTID, FADER WAR, KAFKA PROCESS, BANNLYST, BARN AV REGNBUEN, SO MUCH HATE, STENGTE DØRER.

I never spent much time on the lyrics, I picked up a theme, chewed on it for some minutes, and then I wrote the whole lyrical piece, in top 5 minutes. This is indeed VERY easy to spot, in very premature rhetorical as well as logical state lines, I m close to feeling a slight tough of shame when hearing it today, but for fucks sake, I was only 16 and unfortunately by no means Arthur Rimbaud.All songs were written on a shitty acoustic guitar with only 2 strings on, all of the keys were totally smashed and fucked up, so this condition was permanent. Nevertheless, I managed to write enough material for our first DIY demo, “Kjellerhits”, released in 300 ex. I seem to recall the the track list being:

“KJELLERHITS” "demo late 1990

( Recorded early January 1990 on a shitty portable studio.) 300 copies.

“Du Tar Feil”.

“Æ lille”.

“Nazisvin”.

“Sucks” (CRASS).

“Øl & Rock”.

We continued rehearsing as much as we could, slowly improving our technical skills, and after some months I had penned some new numbers, as well as incorporating more cover tracks as well to the repertoire:

ROLF EINARS DATATIPS live demo 1991

( Recorded early January 1991, live in the studio of TV Nordvest )

“Du Tar Feil”
"Æ lille”.

“Nazisvin”.

"Gi Faen I Militæret"

"Carl Ivar"

"Pop"

"Øl & Rock"

Other tracks we did before the final break up in 1992 were:

“Skrukkelcoken”

"Ett Nytt Og Bedre Liv" (KJØTT)

"Sucks" (CRASS)

“Violent Pacification” (D.R.I)

“My Rules” (VOID)

“Slaughterhouse” (BODY COUNT)

“Snuten Kommer” (BETONGHYSTERIA)

“Willy Er Et Svin” (VILLSVIN)

In February 1990, perhaps as a result of our a bit aggressive way of promoting the poor 300 copies of the demo, we practically forced it on every poor bastard we knew, we were asked to do a live show on this rather corny TV show (the infamous TV Nordvest, but we were of course kind of flattered to get over an hours playtime, and at the same time we knew that if we did a fairly good show, borrowing all the equipment from the TV station(especially their quite expensive PA, we could get lucky recording a new live demo tape, sounding a hell lot better that the first. Later we send the final result to a National Radio show, reviewing demo tapes from all corners of the land. I seem to recall the verdict was way better than we expected.

We never did that many shows, I guess we played 3-4 in CHRISTIANSIN in the period ´90-92, as well as a show at Kulturelt Alternativ in Molde, together with some local punk and HC outfits, like ÅNDELITEN and GOLF CLAP. ROLF EINARS DATATIPS disbanded early Spring 92,, due to the fact that Rolf Einar broke the oath about never joining the army (“Fuck The Army”) and went out of town for a long time. I was already fed up with the proto punk sentiment, the whole goddamn package in style, attitude, behavior and jargon. It claims to cherish the value of non conformity and individual thinking, though at the age of 17 I somehow felt tied to a sub cultural straitjacket that defined and dictated every inch of your life, the life in flesh as well as the universe of thought and emotional stature. Why the fuck should I stick to anarcho punk, reading Direkt Action and Mikhail Bakunin, drinking carrot juice, ban the use of soap thinking the body eventually will "start to clean itself" and only listen to bona fide underground crust when the world had so much more in store?

So I flee the anarcho camp, step by step, by the fall of 1990. I guess the process already started the day I bought the “In My Eyes” 12” (MINOR THREAT), the “We´re Not In This Alone” album by YOUTH OF TODAY and the “Built To Last” album of HOGANS HEROES. Then I got more and more into vegetarianism and finally, initiated by a concert at Kult Alt Molde the 27th of December 1990, with ONWARD, INVERT and LAST STRAW, I turned straight edge and changed out my entire wardrobe, kind of. I bought myself a pretty crappy GIBSON Les Paul and the recruited some natural born talents of the skateboard crowd in CHRISTIANSIN, converted all of them to both vegetarianism, straight edge and HC, and then formed an entire new band…

Me and Trond continued to play together in the indie rock project BIRDY NAM NAM, but that s another post.

IS MY SHOCK BIG ENOUGH?

2010-09-15T12:22:00.055+02:00

In memory of MALCOLM MCLAREN (1946-2010)

Punk had from day one a strong emphasis on the ability to shock. An agent provocateur with a license to ill. Maybe not that strange, pondering the fact that punk was just another product of the 70s, a decade that started out in student protests, the on going war in Vietnam, the live broadcast of Japanese writer Yukio Mishimas suicide speech, the cold war etc. The global temperature was rising, well documented and distributed by the world press. World media had already by 1963 given you the image of what happens when the temperature gets too high,over heathens, ultimately putting the meditating body of a Buddhist monk in Lotus position to fire. This photographic icon of horror, whose extreme effect on the human psyche is studied in Bergmans motion picture Persona (1966), had its second coming on the cover of the RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE debut of 1992. If you wonder where that will to cause a shocking effect in punk rock expression came from, just consider the many contemporary events in the world of the mid 70s and how they all must have affected the creation of it. The nihilistic rock artist, unconventional, rebellious,and very ad hoc to most matters of life, had much in common with the political terrorist. A cultural terrorist, reborn into the cycles of capitalism and mass culture.

If you were offended by the sight of SIOUXSIE SUE wearing a swastika on the debut show of THE BANSHEES at 100 Club, London in 1976, beware the story of another young woman of those days, Ulrike Meinhof. She went straight out to the outer extremes on her debut eve, helping a feared terrorist (Andreas Baader) to escape prison. SIOUXSIE may have left school to pursue the career of a punk artist, but Meinhof left the job of a star journalist, husband and kids, to compose official statements for a left extremist urban guerrilla group(Rote Armé Fraktion). She even took a physical part in the terror acts herself. A license to ill, "Carcass"(BANSHEES) or“Born To Kill”(THE DAMNED),fails to scare much held up against a pamphlet that literally was used as a license to kill. While THE CLASH only formulated a wish for a “white riot of my own” (“White Riot”), RAF actually had it. Nevertheless, punk was at least a child of its time.

Rock n roll had the reputation of a troublemaker since the days of LITTLE RICHARD, but where the rock star of the 50s wiped potential outrages under the blanket of a slick facade, punk brought them up to the very front, wore them on chest. Punk even engaged suspicious symbols, like the swastika, that had zero relevance to what the artist was all about, regarding political views or conviction. Both learning from the success of Goebbels Nazi Propaganda as visual seduction, as well as from the provocative effect Nazi symbols had on the immediate post-war world, the use of the swastika in punk was very predictable, the first offense to expect. The essence of the punk promotion ideology was easy as can be: if you create a media blitz, you soon enough have the hits. Everything that could possible bring along some fuss, irrelevant to the actual message or meaning of it, was suitable as means for the designers of punk. Inspired by US pop art, especially Andy Warhols conceptual Death Series, Situationist International, the classical futurists, Dadaism and contemporary terrorist groups like RAF and Black Panthers, punk developed into an idea of a style that was perfectly fit for the rebel of the 70s, the sort of pop cultural jugend of an urban guerrilla.

Malcolm McLaren, a young art student gone underground fashion designer, went from UK to NY to save the image of NEW YORK DOLLS in 1975. He dressed them up in red Mao uniforms and hung up some communist banners in the background of the stage, thinking his job was done. He honestly thought THE DOLLS, at the time torn apart from reasons much more serious than official band image, were looking towards a golden second chapter. Unfortunately, McLaren was terribly wrong. The disaster was so total that he had to flee the big apple, back to his “Sex” clothing shop on Kings road, London.

“Sex” was a business he ran along with his wife, the young aspiring fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, nowadays an established institution in the fashion world. When they launched a band of youthful “Sex” hang arounds, the SEX PISTOLS, intentions were first and foremost to promote the shop and sparse beginning of a clothing collection ,which by 1977 was known as Seditionaries. McLarens failed attempts with elements from political propaganda in the visual line of THE DOLLS now came up to surface again, though this time they mainly approached the opposite political polarity; the swastika, the sSM touch of the many underground sexploitation movies of those times. Nevertheless, the portrait of revolutionary leftist political thinker Karl Marx, was used in an early item of the Seditionaries, later worn by THE CLASH on several occasions. Headed by the Waffen SS International eagle insignia, turned upside down.

McLaren, together with the other parts of his team, Westwood and UK artist Jamie Reid, could not care less if the motif was a Soviet-style hammer and sickle motif or a Swastika, the only purpose was to stir up some attention, which they surely did, in a most successful way. The marriage of McLaren and Westwood bore fruits for the history books, a matrimony of pop shock perfection. Later the two had a son who grew up to found a lingerie line named “Agent Provocateur”.

On a infamous tee in the Seditionaries collection, McLaren/Westwood, in addition to the swastika banner print, also made use of the crucifix, although of course turning it upside down. In my eyes, a very neat and beautiful blasphemy, reinforced by the vague silhouette of the bestiality that lurks in the background of a symbol like the swastika. The tee/long sleeve was topped off by the heading “destroy”. This visual composition was later worn by PISTOLS singer JOHNNY ROTTEN(John Lydon) in the official video of God Save The Queen, another efficient element in the filth and the fury surrounding the band during their entire career. To create a business of success, they simply explored the sensible nature of the masses, the compulsory thrill of the horror and the scandalous. Usual suspects? The mention of sexual, religious and moral taboos, drugs, extreme propaganda, murder, violence and a life of crime. McLaren managed to find place for them all in the case of SEX PISTOLS. His business strategy can in fact be found in the lyrics of the classic PISTOLS anthem:

How many ways to get what you want

I use the best, I use the rest

I use the NME(enemy)

I use anarchy

“Anarchy In the UK”,

SEX PISTOLS

Punk was born against, which leads my memory back to a t-shirt of the US hardcore act BORN AGAINST, once bought and briefly sported by Vegard Waske, the ex-drummer of LASH OUT. One day he showed up to rehearsal wearing this particular shirt, and it definitely didn t go unnoticed. It depicted a guy with two huge gay bikers in leather on each side, both with their fat reproductive tools enrolled over the male shoulders. I had a good laugh, but I sincerely doubt this joy was shared by neither the guitar player of LASH OUT, nor the mother of the WASKE household. The t-shirt did not even survive the virgin trip to the laundry room, and since then it seems completely gone from the surface of earth. Even on eBay. In my childhood home, conditions were even worse. A Vision Street Wear shorts, with skulls on it, was confiscated by my parents when I was 14, in a house with an unlocked room full of guns from a to z and ammunition enough to launch a goddamn mini war, as well as animal cadavers in guts, bowels and blood, lying around outside the porch during the whole hunting season.

Punk had that talent of getting parents red faced and, until the emerge of Norwegian Black Metal, punk was the undisputed genre in the angry reaction department, “shock rock” par excellence. Christians, teachers, judges and other representative members of the so called establishment were easy targets for these youngsters who listened to primitive rock music , entitled “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”, and spiked their hair in red, yellow and green. They ripped up their jeans, like RICHARD HELL and RAMONES, who took the trend from hookers on main street, NY). They also wore inverted crucifixes and swastikas, featured in DIY stencil prints on shirts. The big fuss was of course carefully stipulated into the strategy. Punk bred much in a similar milieu of hyper active nihilism and total confusion like the later pioneers of Norwegian Black Metal came to operate in, becoming masters of chaos, as with the McLaren penned PISTOLS slogan,“Cash from Chaos”. Irrelevant to what you may think of the means, they both were blueprints for success, thanks to the touchy moral receptors of a post-Christian civilization. Hypocrite, of course, jerking off to what their laws and morals forbid. Nowadays, people almost take this contradiction as the normative rule, sing in a Catholic Church choir one day, rape some teenage boys the next.

Punk took most kinds of provocative turns, without any regards to direction. Nihilism(SEX PISTOLS,THE DAMNED), socialism/communism(THE CLASH), Nazism(SKREWDRIVER), fascism(THE GERMS) and anarchism(CRASS). With the latter, UK ex-hippie camp CRASS, came also a more serious accentuation of the political commitment of the message, defining new rules for a culture that so far had been a wild experiment completely out of no ones control. While the lyrics of “Anarchy In the UK” praised the squalid utopia close to what French original anarchist thinker Pierre-Joseph Proudhon thought of as the direct opposite political and social state to his true anarchy, CRASS revitalized his thoughts on freedom set in system, summoned up in Proudhons most famous slogan: “Anarchy or Chaos”. This political awareness orientated towards the extreme left would dominate the next generations of punk. Then came along a breeze of fresh unsophisticated air, a revival of the true spirit of punk, GBH, ANTI-NOWHERE LEAUGE, CIRCLE JERKS and, at its most poser workshop for working class misfits, THE EXPLOITED. Stepping up the discussion again, in a celebration of “Anarchy and chaos”.

DEAD KENNEDYS was some sort of hybrid of these two different approaches of punk. Their lyrics could break out in punch lines designed to shake the foundations of the moral majority of USA, spelled out in letters shaped to intimidate and provoke a wide spectrum of citizens. These could be satirical opinions on official political events, rooted in a serious leftist political commitment, but they were formulated in a dramatic and playful way, with a resonance for the comedian. I thinks JELLO BIAFRAs biting rhetoric is vaguely related to the one of Bill Hicks or, more precisely, a crossover of him and the sober John Belushi. Other stunts of JELLO BIAFRA and DEAD KENNEDYS could be of a far more mundane and speculative character, typically Too Drunk To Fuck”, or the inlay poster of the Frankenchrist album, a reproduction of H.R Gigers Penis landscape. The latter feature dragged the KENNEDYS to the court house for over a year, but at the same they also got closer to the position of a legend, with commercial appeal. Who do you think had the last laugh?

“…Ever had the feeling of being cheated…”, ROTTEN asks the audience towards the last minutes of the career closing SEX PISTOLS show, San Francisco, 1978.

GANG GREEN / GREEN HELL

2010-05-14T03:46:00.037+02:00

VEGETARIANISM

AND

STRAIGHT EDGE

I imagine a reconstructed scene in the aftermath of a shardcore show in ´91:

A mixed sweaty crowd slowly breaks up and reforms. There re some bony kids changing out their soaked tees with some fresh ones in the outskirts of the room. Shirts sporting obscure but prominent band names or the common cause of It s ok not to drink, carefully chosen out of the closet collection, brought along in Thrasher rucksacks. Together with a pair of extra Champion or Nike socks, 20 Xerox copies of some fanzine supposed to be pushed out during the rest of the night, Maximum Rock n Roll or Transworld Skateboarding magazines, maybe even, in the case of the most extreme and the biggest fashion victims, a copy of Bhagavad Gita As It Is or Das Kapital.

SHUDDER TO NOT THINK

Some ass lickers stand in line to stutter out a cliché or two to the US band or even their roadies, and of there s of course a bunch of guys flocking around the 2 ugly and nerdy females present in the room. The few anarcho-punks, crusties or plain thugs or drunks around are wasted by now and harass people for being so goddamn clean and straight, with words like “fascist”,“Nazi” or “preppie”.

Elsewhere in the club, social fractions gather together to exchange items, experiences and knowledge(down to the smallest detail), a cluster of social activity that, in the deepest sense, confirms a hunt of identity and truth Keywords are 1st pressings,colored vinyl,demos,fanzines or flyers. Some discuss the show, others the edge,skateboarding, abortion, vivisection or, last but not least, the issue of nutrition and exploitation of animals. By ´91 the talk of the veggie had went to extremes; being vegetarian was not something to brag about anymore, it was more like the least to expect and maybe even kind of “faggot”. Plain vegetarianism had already been absorbed into the basic concept, the default, of sXe “philosophy”, now the coolest thing around was veganism, just like Hare Krishna was replaced by Hard Line as popular "controversial" subject.

A kid with baggy trousers, Nike Air Jordans, Alien Workshop baseball cap and a XL World Industries hood hands out a flyer promoting some 7 inch release to this other guy and then they start talking. The kid wants to know if the guy is sXe or not, the other guy shows him his x d hands. The kid smiles, wait for some seconds, then he wonders how thing are on the meat eating stance. The other guy admits having tried to become vegetarian, but in the end the craving for chicken and bacon was way too strong for his aspirations for a strictly green diet. He nevertheless considers sXe to be the most important. The kid looks at him with a grin on his face and replies:

"You can t have the edge without the veg. It don t exist, just like self edge or deprogrammers."

12 X U!

In the international community of straight edge(sXe) in early 90s, a majority of kids involved in the scene had picked up the issue of vegetarianism/veganism by the turn of the decades, and shortly after some clever head felt an urge to bring all this into the original version of sXe. Over 10 years back in time, it was given birth in the wake of the impact DC outfit MINOR THREAT(MT) had on the scene in a huge scale. “Straight Edge” was on their ´81 debut, while the symbol of the x on the hand, came from the cover of previous incarnation of MT, the TEEN IDLES, and their Minor Disturbance EP released earlier the same year.

I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don't even think about speed
That's something I just don't need I've got the straight edge I´m a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and smoke dope
'Cause I know I can cope
Laugh at the thought of eating ludes
Laugh at the thought of sniffing glue
Always gonna keep in touch
Never want to use a crutch

I've got the straight edge

“Straight Edge”,
MINOR THREAT (1981)

The conceptual body of thought in sXe “philosophy” was entirely based on the loose personal statements made in especially 2 lyrics,”Straight Edge” and “Out Of Step”. Reinforced with other MT lyrics like the anti-smoke “In My Eyes” and the anti-drink “Bottled Violence”, fused with the appeal of the music, the clean cut image and the charisma of the front singer, “straight edge” had soon spawned a movement, though it was never planned or intended on Mackaye´s behalf, quite the opposite. Before 1981 there was no such fraction in hardcore, kids saying no to cigarettes, beer and sex, there was just the die hard hedonism of SID VICIOUS and DARBY CRASH and Mackaye thought the least he could do was write a song about it. Both of the big heroes of him were dead and he just simply wanted to formulate and suggest another point of view, make way for the single voice to say no the peer pressure of sex and drugs, but boy, still be able to make some hell of a rock n roll. Sometimes good guys don t wear white, as he said towards the end of his career with MT.

Mackaye, later known for his success with FUGAZI, only made a claim for a right to identity, even if it was the dissident one, a slam dancing bald kid in the pit, alone in a crowd of beer drinking punks singing along to the anthem “Live Fast Die Young”(CIRCLE JERKS). He acknowledged his misfit position in the punk community, but took it on chest and made it something to be proud of. If Mackaye and MT ever hailed a certain ideal or message, it was the one of the illustration on the cover of their masterpiece, the album Out Of Step (Discord,1983): instead of jogging after the herd of white ones, just to make a weak plea for acceptance or affiliation, the black sheep turns around and runs in the opposite direction. Individualism, to give it a general name that clings well in a discussion of lyrical absolutism, and that was truly was an ideal he never let down. To this day.

I don't smoke
I don't drink
I don't fuck
at least i can fucking think
I can't keep up
I can't keep up
I can't keep up
out of step with the world

“Out Of Step(With The World)”,

MINOR THREAT(1981)

TALK IS SHEEP

Ian Mackaye wanted above all to state an example of independence, and rise the level of integrity on an individual level. He never expected a movement to come out of his lyrics, the lyrics of “Out Of Step” are nevertheless pretty clear on the point:

…This is no set of rules,
Im not telling you what to do,
All im saying is im bringing up three things,
That are like so important to the whole world,
That I dont identify as much importance in,
Because of these things,
Whether they are fucking or playing golf,
Because of that I feel….

“Out Of Step”,
MINOR THREAT (1983)

Even when he specified the true meaning, or more accurate the NON meaning, of the previously released “Out Of Step(With The World)” lyrics on their album that came out 2 years later, the world wouldn t listen. At least not carefully enough. Within years you had a movement calling themselves “sXe”, clean looking kids listening to punk music, running around in old school Vans wearing Xs on their hands. In Boston and soon after NY as well.

Instead of putting in front the message of finding your own way instead of following the crowd, this wave of drug free youth was more inflicted with UNITY and “…sticking together like glue…”(SSD), a fashion of conformity, despite the fact insisted on in sXe classic “More Than Fashion”(DYS). On a large scale, for most persons picking up sXe at some point in life, it was not, me included. The ironies and contradictions of this absurd development are many and easy to spot through the lens of time, even though I find they way more beautiful than thought provoking at my present stage in life. Even moral and ethics, values with a traditional non material and even spiritual/religious status in the world of philosophy, were now projected into hardcore fashion, just like the skateboard, the colored vinyl, first edition t-shirt, baseball caps, neck-beads, Nike,Vans,Coca-Cola,Jolt, Star Wars etc etc.

From being a strictly personal testimony to becoming more of a political and ethical manifesto, can be spotted in the shift in lyrical themes, instead of a message of individualism, placing the weight on the solitary stance a rebours, or against the grain, the focus was set on an outer search for identity and beliefs you could share with others. Personal issues out, lyrics about friendship, brotherhood etc in. Many years later the “counter culture within a counter culture” of sXe was fronted by kids calling themselves MAJORITY OF ONE instead of MINOR THREAT. Out Of Step had become We re Not Alone In This (YOUTH OF TODAY, Caroline,1988). A funny anecdote and fact is that Caroline Records was run by the guitarist of MT, Lyle Preslar.

The “..no set of rules…” were now in fact strict rules meant to obey, and they were expanding as well, just like in political parties or in the religious sects. Meat,eggs and diary products are toxics too, and if you don t want to pollute your body and mind you stay away from them before putting the mark of a X on your hand. Jumping back to the imaginary social sequence in the start, the sXe kid gives you a pointing finger, declaring vegetarianism/veganism as a natural part of sXe. “You can t have the edge without the veg” .

The phrase points out a suitable spot yet not marked by the x, an ethical implication of a certain nutrition, if you are among the few and the proud trusted the identity of thinking straight, to say it with the words of YOUTH OF TODAY(YOT). This classic NY hardcore band, operating between the years 1985-90, was in fact the one particular band to blame for the green hell, anyway, though their general indifference to animal rights or rights in general ,revealed the transparency of the trend in regards to the claim of an ethical substance. It was just another tag of a sociocultural stylistic fetishism, comparable to the excessive drug culture in mod or the obligatory interest of football in skinhead culture.

1 2 VEG U!

The idealist will of course stand the ground of an interpretation of this was a product of changes in environment, culture or society, misled to think that this redefinition of the criteria for the uniform choice of the sXe label merely was a natural follow up to the increasing “awareness” of the typical kid within the scene. The MT song “Straight Edge” was rather a call for self awareness, one could suspect got completely lost when somebody figured out to make a culture out of the opposite stated between the lines of the lyrics, changing out a peer pressure with another one. Positive Peer Pressure. The story of how this quantum leap in transformation was possible, is much of the same as how National Socialism became Nazism or how many countries revolt against dictatorship, just to let a new one with a false name take its´place.

The idea of vegetarian/vegan edge forces a presumption of reason for choosing the edge: it s a rational design for a lifestyle that is "healthier" and more "compassionate" for body, mind, mother earth and fellow earthlings. A naive idealism that hails a fragile flick of hope for changing the world into a better place for you,for me and the entire human race. "Doing the right thing". And the first step of the process are you.

If the veg in the edge take form of an universal truth, then you can ask yourself why the fuck it didn t it occur to Mackaye to make a point out of it, not even a slight digression, when he wrote the holy scriptures of "Straight Edge". You don t find any trace of a problem with meat in the lyrics of the song, which came out as the B-side of their debut EP of ´81, Minor Threat. Already on the B-side of the following In My Eyes EP, his head came up with more on the same subject: "Out Of Step(With The World)" introduces another restrain,"don´t fuck", a declaration of celibacy, but it comes with no explanation possible to rise any rigid structure of ethics on. This would make the perfect opportunity to include a mention of vegetarianism, but even rewriting the lyrics in the title track on Out Of Step, there was no sign of the green line or any imperative of not eating meat. But then again, Mackaye never had a table of rules in mind behind the personal aspect of it. .

His original main issue was to resist any kind of conformity, giving voice to the right to think for yourself rather than following the flock of white sheep. Perhaps with a sparse hope of others choosing the drug free line of the many radical minds in his fellow DC hardcore scene of 1981, but certainly without any visions of a punk rock sect. Then the message and the fuss spread around, outside town, and soon you had punk kids choosing the same path, at least in image and sound, in Boston,NY and eventually also in the rest of the world of hardcore punk. Yet it took a new generation of the culture to establish and institutionalize a natural link between sXe and vegetarianism, first taking effect in 1988-89 thanks to the NY acts YOUTH OF TODAY(YOT) and to some extent GORILLA BISCUITS, undoubtedly influenced by CRO-MAGS and ANTIDOTE.

YOT took a lead in the forefront of the many bands that emerged during the 5 last years of the 80s. For YOTs part, they took on a constant preaching of vegetarianism on every given occasion from right after the Break Down The Walls tour and on. The 1986 album had at best a few vague hints of the forthcoming agenda of vegetarianism, but the trend came on much stronger from the next album and forth, eventually turning it into a "pillar of ethics"(a tag that of course was just another face to the good old gimmick apparatus) nearly as crucial as the edge itself.

Around the time of the Break Down The Walls tour, an official band shirt was printed bearing the illustrated motif of a cow, staring at you with sad and blaming eyes, topped by the slogan "Go Vegetarian". However, it was their musical triumph of We re Not In This Alone that grounded an official serious commitment to the issue

"No More" is the track on the album with the most explicit words of the green war against the western nutritious tradition of meat eating, opening the rapid tirade with the lines:

Meat eating flesh eating think about it
so callous to this crime we commit
always stuffing our face with no sympathy
what a selfish, hardened society

“No More”,
YOUTH OF TODAY (1988)

The song was also recorded as a video, the only official music video YOT ever did, though it maybe did more harm to the cause than good, in all it s hilarious youth crew poses and with a visual attitude impossible to take serious. And that comes from a hardcore fan of the band. Nevertheless, We re Not In This Alone had the preaching of vegetarianism written all over it, if not else lurking between the lines together with the many visible pseudo-references to Krishna consciousness. Like for instance the strict moral view on sexuality, especially illicit sex, hanging over the lyrics of the track like for instance "What Goes Around Comes Around". CAN T CLOSE MY BOOKUnder a year later the singer RAY OF TODAY(Ray Cappo) is initiated as a devotee, a Bhakti, of the blue Hindu god KRISHNA, under "the wings" of the ISKCON movement founded by HIS DEVINE GRACE A.C BHAKTI -VEDANTA PRAPHUPAD in late ´66. This meant leaving the concrete jungle, his band,his skateboard and the youth crew hangouts at CBGBs after the shows, moving out to a countryside Krishna farm to meditate the shitty fact of his outlook on rest of the world: You are not this body, it s all an illusion.

APPENDIX 1:

GREEN HELL( LUCY FUR S RISING)

Lucy Fur´s Rising:

If you exit the context of US straight edge, there was a one member clique from UK, the land that first spawned the unholy marriage between punk and politics, that first came up with the concept "vegan straight edge". Rat, equally into CONFLICT(“Meat Means Murder”) and MINOR THREAT, coined this term in 1985 without even imagining it could ever give meaning or relevance to anybody else in this world. He had grown accustomed to his lonely rage, probably aware of the fact that his lifestyle and “moral” convictions were far too extreme for his native crusted hardcore scene, where the average punk at best was pleased with staying off the needle for 5 days or not eating red meat for a week. I mean, he did not have a single individual to even join his band STATEMENT, and I reckon that s a good occasion to question personality rather than thought or belief. Today he has picked picked up the latest satanic flavor and calls himself Lucy Fur on myspace and has this to say on his blurb:

"I'm a very angry person, pissed off with all the assholes in this world who don't care about anything but themselves."

LUCY FUR S POSING

( TO BE CONTINUED )

PREPPIES GO TO HOLOCAUST

2010-04-06T01:44:00.029+02:00

BELseNFaNgan was a gas

My first creative output as a dedicated follower of punk, was a band I had together with my 2 best friends in school. BELSENFANGAN, formed in 1987 in Christiansin. The name was inspired by a life long fascination for the subject of WW2, the SEX PISTOLS track "Belsen Was A Gas", early Norwegian punk act NORGEZ BANKs "Springtime In Belsen"(´80) and hyper obscure early Trondheim punk band BELSEN BOYS, the name can only be found in some band family tree published in an early local punk fanzine(´80). Later we took the the name SURE OPPSTØT, and were more or less active until September 1990. We never got serious enough to record any of the few tracks we wrote, but were nevertheless using the band as more of a playground to prepare for next phase of ROLF EINARS DATATIPS (R.E.D) The transition from BF to R.E.D was just as much about a journey away from the anachronism and nostalgia of a ´88 ´77 purist punk band and into the more contemporary hardcore punk, using anarcho-punk as the bridge.

BELSENFANGAN (1987-90)

ANTI (Anders Wimpelman) - Vocals/guitars

DOG (Trond Nõrbech) - Drums

TØMME (Tor Helge Kvamme) - Bass

T (Trond Iversen) – Guitars

GUN (Gunnar Jørgenvåg) – Drums ´89-90

I still have many of first recordings we ever did during rehearsals on tape, even the very first one, from September 1987, in the cellar of the guitarist (Trond Iversen), who also was the only guy who actually had a proper instrument that was plugged in, though it was just a tiny amp with the most horrible distortion effect ever. Tor Helge “Tømme” Kvamme, who was supposed to play the bass, played the only string available on an acoustic guitar, while the drummer(Trond Nörbech) did his best to make 5-6 tin cans sound like a drum set. Myself, I screamed as loud as I could to compensate for the missing microphone and PA.
The only song we knew the chords to on our virgin rehearsal was “Clash City Rockers” by THE CLASH. We couldn t figure out the refrain or the exact English words, so we tried to skip most of the refrains,bridge and of course the guitar solo, while I wrote down some hasty phrases in Norwegian, ending up with a lyrics of my own, instead of trying to translate into much of the same meaning in the verse lines.

In those days most of us were pretty right wing in political opinions, to say the least, so I took the battle cry of one of most profiled anti-racist bands in early punk and gave it a new message of a vigilante uprise, calling for an urban guerilla to launch a private warfare on the leftists, the social democracy and all associated institutions and individuals. “Ta Te Våpen”( “Get Your Gun”) had probably made the PC camp of Joe Strummer and Mick Jones see “red” for a fact, in double meaning. However, we are not forgetting the fact that the image of THE CLASH by ´77 had a certain urban guerilla look(mostly thanks to WESTWOOD/MCLARHEN and their Seditionary cloth collection) and the wore RAF badges as well as using a live radio discussion on BAADER MEINHOF and terrorism in the legendary live set at the Punk Festival at 100 Club in 1976.The first line I ever wrote in the context of punk lyrics was nevertheless, in retrospect, the only statement in a pile of naive protest lyrics, that still bears an ounce of resonance to my world of beliefs:

I m the black fascist, don t need anybody else, all I really want is a space of myself

BELSENFANGAN, 1987

We got to the next stage of a fully equipped back line of instruments and a temporary place to rehearse, a room in the bomb shelf of our elementary school, totally unfit for audio but still. We now concentrated on how to play the instruments well enough to play a one chord wonder in the right tempo, actually keeping all the elements together long enough to get in some kind of groove for a second or three.

Covers:
THE CLASH “Clash City Rockers”
SEX PISTOLS “Belsen Was A Gas”
BUZZCOCKS “Boredom”
COCKNEY REJECTS “Flares & Slippers”
THE EXPLOITED “Blown To Bits”
DEADKENNEDYS “Pull My Strings”
LOST KIDS “Asocial”
SLIM “Fuck The King”
GBH “Drug Party in 526”
UK SUBS “Crash Course”
WANNSKRÆKK “Æ Veit Da Faen Æ”
RAGA ROCKERS “Radiator” + “Stig”
BACKSTREET GIRLS “Sexual”“

Own tracks:

“Paven E En Dritt”
“Politi Stat”
“Ambisjona”
“Æ Tru kje”

(Music and words by Anders Wimpelman 1987-90)

“Æ TRU KJE”

Æ trukje på gud eller hans hellige sønn, trukje på dem som drep tia med bønn, trukje på paven eller hans ord, Æ trukje på dem som gjør guds handling så stor

Æ trukje x 2

Æ trukje på regjeringa Ap eller Venstre, trukje på at dem kan styre vårt land, trukje på sosialismen, trukje på liberalismen , Æ trukje at de løftan som dem kjem med e sann

Æ trukje x 2

Trukje på dæ Trukje på mæ Trukje på noka

( LOOOOONG SOLO)

Det æ trur på e sunn fornuft, det æ trur på e natur og luft , det æ trur på e anarki , det e det æ trur på, du hakkje noka å si?
BELSENFANGAN 1988

Our first concert was on the same day as we graduated from elementary school, on a multi band arrangement of local heroes (DAGLIG DOSE and SOMETHING ELSE) as well as the trembling debutants as ourselves. 3 of us wore the same ugly Hawaii shirt, safety pins, circle-A buttons, and I also sported my own pirate Seditionary “Destroy” t-shirt., making sure that both the inverted crucifix and reversed swastika were visible. I sang and played the rhythm guitar, and I doubt any of the efforts to be memorable in terms of technical skills or music whatsoever.

We opened with “Asocial” by LOST KIDS outta the legendary Danish Pære Punk compilation of 1978, without knowing the track in fact was a cover itself, “Mongoloid” by DEVO , with a totally different lyrics in Danish, as well as an extended wah wah guitar solo to show off LOST KIDS´ Sweet Bølle du Blonds promising talent, which unfortunately probably never came in full fledged bloom thanks to his early death due to the heavy line of substance abuse in the LOST KIDS camp. Then we played “Drug Party At 526”(GBH) with ALL instruments out of tune, and to be sure to make a complete disaster out of it also playing the chords in different scales. “Fuck The King” by SLIM, also from the Pære Punk release, was the second last track, before we barely had the nerves and guts to play the only song we had written ourselves, “Paven E En Dritt”(“Fuck The Pope”). I remember walking off stage half embarrassed and with a feeling of failure, and the first reaction from the audience was this Christian girlfriend to this guy from another band, attacking me with accusations of being a tool in the hand of antichrist, though I hardly think ANYONE would have trusted us such a task, I said fuck off and joined the guys on a well deserved celebration bender for our 9 years in primary school.

Our other show was in 1990, the night of the first of May, a traditional marking of the official union workers day in Norway, everybody getting drunk beyond belief and some, like the 4 of us, that is 3 with a stand in drummer for the occasion, Gunnar Jørgenvåg, perform angry music with an agenda devoted to the harshest critique of all tin soldiers and puppets of the government and state, on the stage of one of the biggest National rock events of the year in those days, paid by the public welfare state and given the patron of the Norwegian union workers party LO(Landsorganisasjonen i Norge). SURE OPPSTØT got somehow qualified, and made a short performance of 3 songs, under the name SKJEDENS IRONI.

I got drunk way before even the soundtrack, and minutes before going on stage I thought to myself, unable to recall hardly any of the lyrics to the songs, that the only way to escape the fate of just another tragedy or catastrophe of a performance was to seek ways to distract the attention of the audience, I ripped my button down shirt, cutting up a finger to get some blood to smudge on the white shirt with a black and red circle A badge, I found a marker pen and wrote “LO SUCKS!” with big clumsy letters on the front chest of it, and added some safety pins and neck chain a la SID VICIOUS. Ready for gig. The guitarist played the intro riff of “Politi Stat”(“Police State”), and then I walk up to the microphone stand, shook the microphone till it fell off and hit the floor(with irrepearable damage). Then I picked it up again and yelled out a salute to the union fucks

This goes out to you all you fucking pricks, especially the goddamn LOsers who think we hate them less just for putting up this ridiculous show. The truth is ,we respect you even less, we despite you more than ever, fuck the 1st of May! 1..2..3..4

I spit at the audience and spilt a couple of pints of water out in the pit, sneered a few lines in the mic and moved like a madman on fire while at the same time trying to remember some of the lyric lines. We continued with the slow cover of native rock outfit RAGA ROCKERS, “Radiator”, and then rounded off with “Paven E En Dritt”, with a long and noisy outtro, a few more insults from me before switching us off, then the bouncers entered the stage and asked us the get the hell off stage before they had to do it. being forced off the stage by LO bouncers. Despite having both a guitarist and a drummer that were rather .uninspired during the whole concert, the LO gig was WAY more successful than the debut, but on a meta-musical level, similar to the debut of the 2 definitive punk faves these days, SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES in ´76 and THE GERMS in ´77, standing out of the ordinary conventional act, not thanks to the quality of the music, by far more of the opposite, but rather by raising the temperature, giving those motherfuckers something they can reshape into a rumor, becoming the talk of the town. Not for any other reason than to make sure having said: “here we are,scumbags”. How to do it? The filth and the fury,outrageous behavior of any kind, so simple to act out that even retards could stand a fair chance.

Later that year, after the Summer vacation, SURE OPPSTØT decided to call it a day. The guitarist was the main reason for the split up, having played along the lines for quite some time without ever showing the least of interest or passion towards the music or the social four piece unit of our band. Unlike the rest of us, he never had the same weak spot for punk and thus he fell out of it after a while, and at the same time he also got considerably more into playing the guitar than playing in a band.

During the last year of playing together with T, he was barely present at all, mentally at least, and it became more and more difficult to communicate with the guy. He would keep quite for hours and hours, without a single smile or gesture, if he ever revealed a dominating emotional character in his personality, it was the one of indifference, maybe with a touch of arrogance. On the typical rehearsal, between every song, he started playing his goddamn solos, and we always had to use loads of effort to drag him out of that state again, like he was trapped in a trance of improvised tones, a dream of stepping into the shoes of JIMMY PAGE or HENDRIX for a minute or two.’

Whenever put at face value with the term “punk”, after the initial bliss faded out, still if it was the identity and image of his band, he left no doubt of a growing distaste for the lot. As he once told me:

"I have advanced to a more intelligent and mature form of rock".

Now he saved his hair and money, until he could afford a special ANGUS YOUNG(AC/DC) Gibson SG guitar, the tool he held worthy enough to bring into his cave of a teenage room, the magic toy that would warp him to guitar hero heaven, section “extended solo psychosis”. Then started a nonstop jerk off on a red guitar, the devil in the flesh, as DAVID SYLVIAN puts it, and I really don t know if the solo still is on, though it may as well be..

T seldom showed no interest in riffs or the structure of songs. Instead of a main focus on the creative aspect of the arrangement in overview, like every single one of the eruptive forces he adored had as first priority, he went for an obsessive technical zoom-in of certain fragments of the rock composition. The interest grew into a love affair, but not with music, as a general totality of a whole, rather the electric guitar. “the medium is the message”(McLuhan), sort of. The guitar as an object of fetish. If the instrument was his love, then his message would have to be the guitar solo.

Guitar solos appeared regularly in modern rock numbers of those days, think EDDY VAN HALEN or JOE SATIRIANI, nearly to the point that you eventually wondered if the guitar hero had some kind of compulsory claim of the total playtime of a song. In the beginning “Mr T” learned by heart all of his favorite solos chosen from a bucketful of evergreens, CREEDENCE CLEARWATER, DEEP PURPLE, ERIC CLAPTON and LED ZEP. After spending most of his time practicing the guitar solos of others for some time, he gradually developed a touch and an intuitive understanding of his instrument , which in return enabled him to take on improvisation, built on the knowledge of blues scales, his only truly creative use of the ax.

He brought one single of the standard rock guitar features, the solo, to an remarkable perfection, but the price to pay for such an offer, was the inevitable neglect of other and far more important techniques and song parts, like the riffing, chords, ability to play along with the other components, “tightness” and the overall rhythmical sense in the instrumental use. Hence I always thought T was a pretty lame guitarist in every department but the solo, he missed out on stuff of importance to the sound of the whole band, playing rhythmical chords of riffs in a staccato manner, without any natural flow or awareness of his relation to the whole and vice versa. The main problem of his and eventually us ,was the lack of interest in any matter concerning the band, a total indifference to whether his band sounded any good or not, even existed or not.

The situation had evolved into a bit of an irony: a PUNK guitarist whose main skill is the least used and celebrated element in his own genre, the guitar solo. Otherwise he was unable to memorize songs and could barely keep the tempo or curve in the arrangement a whole song through, all this probably because he only had 1 particular short part of a song before his creative minds´eye.The solo part was the only situation, music wise, that you actually could spot a spark of vitality in his play, and he always pursued this task with an attention and eager that were completely absent outside the bubble of his solos.

This led to a contrast between the whole and the flow that became too easy to point out for the listener, as well as punctuating the dynamics and the groove. What had been an orphic virtue that melted the heart of every bystander, took at some point of his career with SURE OPPSTØT a different turn that soon proved itself as being blunt and ignorant narcissism. This egocentric tendency, rarely succeeds in the interplay with other musicians, made the disbandment of SO no exception from the rule. No serious musician can work with an individual who refuse to acknowledge the supreme position of the whole they all have contributed to as a creation, only doing his job properly when all lights are on him and he is the one to shine.

So he escaped into the realm of his own, where he was the ultimate God of Guitar, released from all pressure to engage the SG in any other use but the sacred art of guitar solos. No other person around to listen, limit down his need for having the attention of the four naked walls all by himself. He took a step out of the social context and into the solitary space of his bedroom, just as he took a specific part of the rock n roll blueprint and isolated it, in order to make this an independent creative output, with no roof of an arrangement to submit it to.

I often thought about how different his take on music, in means of artistic expression,techniques and ambitions, was compared to my own. And one have to remember the fact that this was under 2 years after we both started on scratch,side by side,as we picked up instruments and started a band of our own. I had the dreams and ambitions that already were there long before we formed BELSENFANGAN, in fact they were already deeply rooted in me before punk even came around; since I saw KISS at television at the age of 6.. As I grew up, the dreams of a child morphed into a refined wish for spending my time and energy on creative expression, in one way or the other.

When I dreamt of PAUL STANLEY and KISS it was, more than anything else, a seed of a wish for writing songs that had much of the same power of expression, a force so strong that it would ignite a soul fire so bright that it was able to cast light on paths never seen before, set a new direction for an individual life. I knew that what I first and foremost aimed at, was to create and perform my own songs, even if I knew I had to be patient for the good stuff to materialize. Patient enough to find a suitable channel and tool for it , learning to operate it, mainly to achieve a “higher”goals. This implies putting work into something even you think sucks, but do it anyway because you re smart enough to see that there s no other option, if you want to reach your Stairway To Heaven or, much more accurate for the world of today, Highway To Hell.

On the material and practical level, there was a huge difference in me and Ts´ situation, even if the irony bites your head off by underlining that I was the preppie upper class kid while he was more of a working class anti-hero. He got a proper IBANEZ guitar, including a small Peavey amp, from his parents immediately after he told them about his idea of a new hobby. Me,on the other hand, who lived in a high society household where everything was dictated by a perverted praxis of keeping up those fucking appearances, both my mom and my stepfather did all they could to NOT support me, among other things they never allowed me to buy an instrument, even though I had money for it myself. I had to reach the age of 18, not afraid for getting my own ass kicked anymore, before I did it anyway. My choice was also Gibson, but even though I later converted to SG for a long period, I chose the Les Paul model, first and foremost because of PAUL STANLEY and JIMMY PAGE, as well as PORCELL of YOUTH OF TODAY, a band I was heavy into at the time. Later I discovered it was just a fake one, but the thought was good and, as they say here in Norway, that is what s really important. Just as long as you can make good use of it, I d rather say.

Before the Les Paul came to my rescue, I had to, instead of using a descent and functional guitar, get a cheap and nearly trashed acoustic guitar from my fellow band member and good friend Tømmes father, which he was about to throw away anyway. The problem was that you could only use 3 strings on it, because all note keys were long gone. I sneaked it into my room, which was 1st floor while the rest lived and slept on 2(the perfect symbol of the hierarchy of this family and house), and took it out from the closet on dark evenings and started to fumble with a defected tool I did now how to use, in a broken condition or not. Unlike both T and Tømme, I never got to attend any guitar lessons, once again thanks to the psychopaths that ruled my childhood home, so the only way to start a creative career, was to get the most out of my shitty guitar with three strings.

The first song I ever wrote, back in ´88, “Æ Tru kje”, was a result of the following process: I simply found the 4 tones in the riff, put them together and came up with 4 new tones that would make a refrain. Then I memorized it, and kept working on it in my head while I tried to come up with some lyrics to apply to it.
That s how I wrote my first song, whileT had done, after learning all AC/DC guitar solos by heart, his first improvised solo. It was to become a solo that went on and on, to a point where his 3 ex-band mates had done several concerts, recorded 2 demos and performed a long set on local television, using the name ROLF EINARS DATATIPS(R.E.D), with me on guitar instead of the guitar solo hero. In contrast to SURE OPPSTØT/SKJEDENS IRONI (just like LOST KIDS), where every song had loooong improvised guitar solos, R.E.D had not a single one ever.

MINOR THREAT

2010-01-09T18:04:00.013+01:00

EGO VISION

PUNK was doomed to be an obscure musical interest in my small town community in the beginning of the 90s. Both as musical taste and style. In an area where pop where at its´most pretentious, the assortment of punk was not the largest sections of the 2 record stores available for the few and the proud punk kids . The only way to get hold of stuff, records, merch and fanzines, was to order oversea. All ads instructed you to send money in advance,cheap fanzines as expensive vinyl. So I exchanged my sparse savings into dollars and posted my orders.The risk was obvious: In 5 out of 10 cases you got ripped off by greedy people who never got back to you with what was rightfully yours. EQUAL VISION is a NY punk label once founded by Ray Cappo (ex-VIOLENT CHILDREN and YOUTH OF TODAY) to help out the distribution of the first releases of SHELTER, the band he formed after his conversion to Hare Krishna. Cappo aka Raghunatha, as his band grew bigger in addition to his religious duties as a brahmana[1], ran out of time and passion available for the label and eventually sold it to a fellow Krishna punk.

REDDY TO RIP OFF

Steve Reddy was the new label manager and his beads-rubbing hands were even sloppier than the formers, at least considering the mail order section of the label. He was, just like all the deadheads that came from the streets and into ISKCON in the late 60s, probably just spotting an easy opportunity to rip people off. He became a pirate sailing under the flag of religion and "compassion", giving official statements like his label being an important tool for spreading of the message of Krishna etc etc. I see no reason to doubt his dedication and support of the music, but I don t buy that there s any underlying compassion about his phony business, other than for the greens.

BHAGAVASCAM

The Sanskrit word for illusion, Maya, is often used in lectures to explain how everything we experience in this world, in fact ain´t the real deal. This point of view is even acclaimed to be obvious for an intelligent person to buy, even with a total lack of physical evidence. I wonder why so few of us end up dancing around in the streets in orange dhotis[2], looking like a bunch of misplaced weirdoes, instead of getting drunk, having sex,starting families or maintaining a career. “Bhagavatam” is to engage yourself in spreading the eternal love of Krishna, the blue god. This is the main activity and concern for every bhakta(monk) or bhaktin(nun),and they´re encouraged to think of Krishna as much as possible, mostly through the compulsory chanting of the maha mantra[2], but preferably in most other situations in life.

SKATE FOR FAITH

Vic Dicara aka Vraja Kishor das was a guy who pretty fast became a notable name in the hardcore/straight edge scene of late80s. He played in several bands[3] and also did this Krishna hardcore fanzine called Enquirer. In print and layout one of the better of its´ time, but it contained mostly different pics and interviews with his own projects, not to speak some hilarious columns on different aspects of Krishna Consciousness. In a number of the zine from ´91,he introduces his original interpretation of Bhagavtam, one very suitable for the average hardcore kid, who usually had an interest for skateboarding. Dicara had a suggestion on how to incorporate the thought of his blue god even when cruising the streets with your board, illustrating the manual for a spiritual and religious life with the metaphor of some skateboard trucks grinding the coping[4] of the vert ramp. The general idea was to think of the board as material body, which made the ride of wheels some sort of a metaphor for your life. Every time you felt like grinding a suitable edge on your trucks, you could read it as a rough meeting with the hard edges of the material world(maya). But the problem of this particular example is the fact that few normal persons, Krishna or not, approaches those “edges” of life intentionally or with the same eager as the skater spotting the perfect curb for a grind. Along the lines of this pretty far fetched example on how to read the religious conviction into almost anything you do or say, there are far more dangerous and manipulative implications for a person who claims to be Krishna conscious. When the thought of Krishna is the most important concern, not necessarily the action carried out of it. It´s a well known way to justify whatever, leading the attention towards the intentions instead of the deeds. A holy goal can justify even the most horrible and cruel means, just think of the systematic torture and killing of innocent women by the Catholic church during the dark years of the middle age.

BACK TO CONHEAD

With the (anti)material philosophy of Krishna consciousness and their concept of maya, talk about the 0how modern science and their physical proofs can´t be trusted, it is a piece of cake writing off any objections as illusion. As the giant in Twin Peaks tells Agent Cooper:

"The owls are not what they seem."

In the pretty shocking book on ISKCON, Monkey On A Stick, by John Hubner and Lindsey Gruson, you get so many examples on how these methods of manipulation are used to justify all human action of this world that certainly ain´t associated with the spreading of love peace and love: murder, incest, fraud, swindle, abuse,drugs and weapons. Why they did it? Well, you´re in the chains of maya and wouldn't´t understand it, but we actually did it out of our unconditional love for Krishna and hence also you blah blah blah. So after PRABHUPADA [5] died in 1977, the movement was haunted by a series of scandals and activity he sure as hell wouldn't´t tolerate from his disciples or even less give his blessing as bona fide. But what do you expect from a bunch of ex-hippies and drop outs who suddenly get the chance to rip off innocent people and use any means necessary in the war on the karmis.We´re talking more of losers who was given a chance to make money, gain power and influence in an easy way, and the best part is that can even make you believe that these are not in fact illegal, brutal and selfish behavior, more acts of altruism and the common good.

BELIEF AS THIEF

With my discussion above in mind, we can probably easier understand the ruthless stealing of money from innocent kids only trying to support the movement, showing interest of a unlikely linking of religion and punk in his contemporary hardcore scene. EGO VISION mail order mostly held their own releases and merchandise, but also the standard Krishna assortment of tulasi neck beads, lectures on tape and of course the long rank of publications by well respected swamis,was more of an idealistic project, REDDY said in some interview, than a commercial business(read:”fraud”). His label had the main concern of bringing out the Holy Name to a corrupted world, not earning money on naive European hardcore kids.

I was stupid enough to place quite a big order through mail in my most devoted days of Krishna hardcore. Months went on without a sign. After writing EQUAL RIPOFF at least 3 times to check out the situation without a word happening, I came up with the idea to make a fictive flyer entitled “Boycott Equal Vision”, which I told them would be included in the LASH OUT "Worn Path" 12" of 1994. We were kinda big abroad, and our label,STORMSTRIKE RECORDS was the European chapter of the US label Doghouse Record.

Of course the hypocrite Steve Reddy, probably sky high on his "success"(well,it wasn't´t exactly ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES, SST or SUBPOP,that´s for sure) at the time,ignored my last resort of a prank and stole my goddamn money. If I was given the opportunity to explain his criminal way of “making business”, I bet he had been cheeky enough to say it was for my own personal good etc, perhaps because the money had been used in a more karmic way to his god of fraud. I´ve grown old enough since then to even care about my lost money today, but I´m more pissed off by thinking that the hardcore hoax of EQUAL SUPERSTITION is alive and kicking these days as well, sailing under a false flag of "hard,edgy Krishna conscious music". but I know what that business is all about by now and I certainly Good to know that most of the stuff he is releasing totally bores me and ain´t much of a loss at all. I used to be a lot into the early releases of SHELTER,108 and REFUSE TO FALL, but they certainly lack the timeless qualities of, let´s say,YOUTH OF TODAY,BEYOND or INSIDE OUT. Living without these bands is just as easy as with their blue god playing the flute

Nevertheless,a German lowlife that I can t recall the name of, who we met on the first LASH OUT European tour, had this stinky mail order I was stupid enough to send a great deal of money.I didn t recive a shit,and after writing the scumbag 6 times, I repeated the EV prank. After 1 week I got a huge packet,containg among other things the rare PROJECT X 7"on Schism Records, and a note that said..."FUCK YOU!

[1]:Sanskrit word for the Hindu priest.

[2]:The orange,yellow and white robes worn by Krishna's.

[3]:Vic Dicara played in several influential hardcore bands in the late 80s and 90s:BEYOND,SHELTER,BURN,INSIDE OUT and last his own alter ego, 108.

[4]:Pipes of steel used as the upper edge of skateboard ramp,perfect for grinding on trucks, board slides etc.
[5]:Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada(1896-1977),often referred to by devotees as "His Divine Grace",was the man who brought Krishna Consciousness to the Western world and founded their movement in late 1966.
[6]:A karmi is a non believer, trapped in a world of illusion and bound to rebirth over and over again until they start chanting the holy name.
[7]:Tulasi is a three in India which is regarded as holy and a "helper of Krishna". They wear neck beads made of tulasi for protection from evil spirits and the many demons in this world, according to them.
[8]:A Swami is a spiritual leader or guru in the Vedic Hindu tradition.

CRASH TEST DUMMIE

2009-12-14T06:37:00.015+01:00

"Why don´t you get your brains fixed, cred police?"

“..I'm not one I'm two..”

“We Must Bleed”

THE GERMS

DARBY CRASH (Jan Paul Beahm) was the charismatic and much influential vocalist and front figure of THE GERMS,one of the greatest and most groundbreaking punk acts to ever emerge from the LA scene.The band was short lived, only existing from 1977-79,though they made good use of the time given and wrote themselves into a solid position in rock history. In music, lyrics, concept, scene appearance and not at least biography.

Beahm was born on the 26th of September 1958 and barely lived for 22 years before committing suicide on December the 7th, 1980. What was so special about his story, was the extreme level of commitment; he invested all he had in what he regarded as the only meaningful purpose of his existence; a search for the unholy grail of our times, pop stardom and the "immortality" we presume our history and “collective memory” are capable of preserving.Some day in 1975, Jan Paul Beahm and Georg Ruthenberg,both still in high school, sat around and made plans for a future band.They agreed on the following strategy:

1) Find a name.

2) Advertise for additional FEMALE members.

3) Book the first gig.

4) Buy the instruments and find a rehearsal space.

5) Write some killer tracks,record and release them.

They rechristened themselves on the spot, Beahm as the Edgar Allan Poe-ish the “Bobby Pyn”(Beahm) and Ruthenberg as “Pat Smear”. Then Beahm, who adored DAVID BOWIE,came up with the final vague point on the agenda:

"It s like BOWIE said, we´ve got five years".

He took this cue from BOWIEs album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust, which tells the story of an outer space rock star who falls down to earth and is given five glorious years on the planet as a rock god.This prophecy folds out in the first song on the album,"Five Years", which also of course implies the inevitable tragic end, the last track of the album,"Rock N Roll Suicide". While Ziggy Stardust died,his maker resurrected in the flesh of a new alter ego,“Thin White Duke”,and that has been the cycle of progression to this very day. Bobby Pyn,on the other hand,by then calling himself DARBY CRASH,.kept his promise of a "rock n roll suicide" at the end of the 5th year, shooting up an insane dose of China white heroin on the 7th of December 1980.

He imagined himself as the center of a cult,a spiritus leader of a flock of sheep named after one of their songs, “Circle One”. His demand to every member was crystal clear:

“...gimme gimme your hands, gimme gimme your minds, gimme this gimme that...”

Lexicon Devil

THE GERMS

The sloppy and chaotic order had an initiation ritual of it own. In order for an aspirant to be let inside the blue circle of lives, they had to go through the “germs burn” formality, where they got a cigarette burned into the flesh of the most sensitive point of the underarm, to optimize the pain involved.This left a circle formed scar,the symbol of the cult marked on their bodies. Beahm was clearly more of a dreamer than a realist,a self proclaimed fascist who would love to turn his audience of young punk kids in LA into toy soldiers, germs marionettes, he could command out to get him beer,drugs or food. His "disciples" and fans were often refered to as "crash trash".

All this paints a blashemic picture of an rock opera, titled "Darby Crash Superstar", with himself as the prophet, the Baptist,"chaotic master" and, eventually, the Messiah. The messiah also with an implication of "man of sorrows", a martyr doomed to an early death. From this point the story takes another direction than the New Testament. A motorway to hell instead of a resurrection. A digression: This link of punk and Jesus Christ superstar, is bound to remind me of the fact that TURBONEGROs Hank Von Helvete in these days actually plays the role of Christ in a contemporary Norwegian musical production of Jesus Christ Superstar. When first mentioning TURBONEGRO, I have to give EUROBOY(guitar, TURBONEGRO) all props for making an astonishing guest appearance during THE GERMS show in Oslo 2 weeks ago.

DARBYs apocalyptic version of the tale of DAVID BOWIEs 1972 masterpiece,The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust, and which of course also was influenced by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, was not just an attempt at creating something similar in artistic expression or mythological thought. For the super bright but still very doomed boy DC, this was as real as life could be. He took the fictive universe of Oresteia(Greek tragedy) and applied it onto his own life, investing everything he ever had, even the promise of a possible future, into a social realism of tragedy. Since he came up with "The 5 year plan"(D.R.I) in ´75, his life and artistic career followed the exact same dramaturical curve as the Greek plays or the similar biblical story of Christ. Compared to the latter, the first objection would perhaps be the missing soothing element of catharsis, a resurrection never took place. Or so they thought until nearly 30 years later.

After several intended film project on this story, all canceled due to several reasons, the Rodger Grossman production, based on a screenplay co-written with a friend of DC ,Michelle Baer Ghaffari(seen together with him in The Decline Of The Western Civilization) actually became a motion picture in 2007. A main issue during both screenplay writings and production, was to to secure the legacy of the dead punk star, telling his tragic but fascinating story in an respectful way. I presume this ethical and aesthetic codes also determined the outfall of the castings, not at least the lead role of critical importance, DARBY CRASH himself. They took a chance on a handsome actor in the mainstream league and I sure as hell can see all reasons why.

SHANE WEST,got so much into the role as DC that he underwent dental surgery adjustments, just to look more like the original. The young actor also, after few weeks of filming, got the same tattoo as DC on his left shoulder. A motive that embodies two key allegories in the lyrical realms of THE GERMS: The Panther, standing in front of The Circle. The most obvious examples are of course "Manimal", where he opens with the words:

"I came into this world

like a puzzled panther

Wanting to be caged

But something stood in the way

I was never quite tamed...”

"Circle One", was an early song performed by THE GERMS, with lyrics based around text fragments from DCs first lyrical experiments. The circle suggests a cycle, of search and destroy?, a circle painted blue and, by DC, declared as the only circle in this life. Death could then of course be seen as the second and final circle DC hints at in the beginning of the movie, the afterlife was "Circle Two". He probably had his fascination with circles from thinkers such as Platon and Friedrich Nietzsche,as well as being in need of a simple and clean cut symbol to represent his band and "order. One of the last things he said in life, to his surviving suicide pact companion,Casey Cola, after she expressed something of a second thought was:

What´s the point, next year you will be exactly at same point as now, trapped in a circle, the one we re about to break..."

SHANE WEST was undoubtedly encountering a legend of the past that still, 30 years after his suicide, is capable of setting young souls on fire."On Fire" is exactly what he is, during the entire movie, at their infamous chaotic concerts, his manipulative manic social behavior and his grotesque party line of drug taking from a to z, of course landing on a steady heroin addiction.

Just like Gary Oldman, as SID VICIOUS in Alex Cox ´86 movie Sid And Nancy,or Val Kilmer in Oliver Stones The Doors, SW captured something authentic,powerful and ESSENTIAL in the role as DC. Many of the drama-docu interviews during the film, give the similar impression as the few video clips and live shots that have survived the real DC. I ve absorbed every detail of information or data available on the subject and thus I claim a good understanding of the nature and personality of DC, private as on stage. This leads me to the conclusion that Darby, if he was to see the handsome substitute for himself at work, he would be very proud. Not at least given the nature of his sexuality, seeing that young revolting stud cutting himself with broken glass as his band bursts into "We Must Bleed". as JIM MORRISON in

I doubt the question of a reunion was a topic of debate in the ex-GERMS camp before they met SW and started playing for fun, as PAT SMEAR told me after their gig in Oslo. Mostly out of respect to the memory of the man and friend who gave them all their respective artistic alter egos, "Pat Smear", "Lorna Doom" and "Don Bolles". Without his presence, in one sense or the other, a resurrection of the work of Paul Beahms life was out of the question. They wouldn t run the risk of reducing the mission of achievements he spent the 5 last years of his life to turning into the stuff of legends. Physical presence was no option, so the only thing that could bring alive THE GERMS,was a silent approval from his grave.

The incident that could give the three members of THE GERMS still alive such a collective sense was probably when they were present under the shooting of the film, working as overall consults and mentors of the film crew. Meeting SW under the shooting of the movie was what probably opened their minds to the possibility of a second coming of the band. This time with a replacement for the non replaceable DC, a mainstream actor and pretty boy named SHANE WEST, soon rechristening himself to SHANE WRECK, Never mind all prejudices activated by the thoughts, when you see the movie, how SW in central moments comes very close to the spirit we know as DB, the social blast...

It comes as no surprise that someone, some grumpy punk fundamentalist, the purist that limits his life with a set of rules or standards, such as the demand for authenticy or "street", or "punk" credibility. It almost broke my old punk heart to hear that JELLO BIAFRA allegedly is one of them. The arguments are the worn out rhetoric of the underground "punk" spectacle, somehow starting with CRASS and their ideals of "no sellout" and "no negotiation with the mainstream industry". The ideal is to remain against the grain no matter what, and to even CONSIDER replacing a true "underground" hero of punk like Darby Crash with a slick actor would be, to quote SORE THROAT, "a disgrace to the corpse of Sid(meaning the "spirit of punk"). The irony of that is that neither VICIOUS ot CRASH by any means are gallon figures for such a metaphorical use.

So you stupid fucks really think the legacy of Darby Crash would be better off laid to rest for good, cutting off the links of influence through time onto and into new generations of youngsters running wild to rock music and pseudo-religious mind control? What do you think Darby, lying in his grave, would have preferred see happening to his explosive testament in words and music? Dead, silent and deaf in the grave for eternity, or reanimated, resurrected in new versions of the classic set of THE GERMS, introduced to a new audience in clubs of today? People going nuts to "No God", like an unholy communion using the same words and guitar chords as the original line up did in the last gig ever(Starwood Club, 4th of Dec,1980)is a thought that Darby must have chosen before the fading memory of a old punk that was there in his own time.

Another more principal aspect which can only count in favor of the reunion of THE GERMS with SHANE WEST these days, are the personality traceable in the surviving lyrical lines, interviews and statements made to friends,band mates and family during his short life around. DARBY CRASH was not the underground anti-mainstream hero or spokesman that many people declare his creative expressive posthumous persona to be. His life was not a battle against the corporate music industry or the streamlined mainstream popular culture, rather the opposite, a TOTAL commitment to the tradition of rock n roll stardom and mythology.

All Paul Beahm dreamed about was to become a star, the bigger the better, that would burn brighter than all others in the pop culture galaxy, guiding the way into a chaotic and shadowy future and the burn out for good, only leaving the immortal tale of a punk Messiah behind.

BOWIE in those days, also lived in L.A and had such a serious coke habit that he fell into a 2-year psychosis, among other things spawning the alter ego Thin White Duke . This pseudonym lead him into the studio for the pompous recording "Station To Station", where every feature, arrangement and the words of the lyrics, is marked by the same grandeur of temporary drug-fueled madness and megalomania. "It´s not the side effect of the cocaine", he states in the title song, but in fact it was. To this day, Bowie don t remember anything from this recording whatsoever, neither his quote to the English press of Hitler being the first rock star of all times. This was the result of a "cranked actor"(1972 BBC documentary on BOWIE), reading too much NIETZSCHE under the Bolivian influence.

Paul Beahm was, even before his wild experiments with drugs, both a serious reader of Nietzsche and Oswald Spengler, and when it came to politics he always claimed to be fascist, even admiring the "genius" of Adolf Hitler. Hence the illustration on the cover of the "Lexicon Devil" 7 " of 1978. He dreamt of becoming the leader of sect, which also had its´out spring in Beahms former years as a student of Ron Hubbard and the Church Of Scientology. Not to mention his profound fascination for Charles Manson, and the way he controlled a small group of followers through mind control and though manipulation. After all, mind control was what got himself and Pat Smear kicked out of school, even though he received his diploma nevertheless. Even in the GERMS interview in Flipside # 2 of 1977, Beahm, Bobby Pyn, commented on Scientology as

"..the biggest rip off there is but it´s also worth the money, their philosophy is unbelievable...

everything they say...even the government´s been suppressing them...everything they say works. If I had $ 10.000, I´d go back and do it (talking about their courses) "

A statement such as this reveals that what´s important to this young aspiring leader, is the methods of argumentation, in other words means of controlling the minds and the will of the followers. This interest in mind control, dreaming of himself as the spiritual leader of a "circle of lives", runs through many of the main songs recorded and played by THE GERMS: "What We Do Is Secret"), "Circle One", "The Slave" etc.

On top of this, ripping to pieces the presumption of Darby Crash as an underground hero, I will remind everybody who refuse to accept SHANE WEST as a worthy replacement, of the fact that one of DARBYs favorite artists and idols was QUEEN and especially Freddy Mercury. On one occasion, when QUEEN did a concert in L.A, 3 members of THE GERMS (Darby, Pat and ex-member Berlinda Carlises) found out where the band stayed, they stood outside the hotel all night through, freezing their asses off, just to get a sight of the superstars. They never showed up, unfortunately.

"The great man lives in such a way that his existence is a sacrifice to his idea"

Oswald Spengler(1880-1936)

IF THE KIDS ARE UNITED

2009-12-10T20:35:00.030+01:00

The first phase as a punk rocker was partly a journey in the vinyl collectors wide and infinite world, a hunt after new musical experience, preferably tagged as "punk". At an early stage, both me and Dog * had this tiny book where I kept a list over every single punk artist I was familiar with, even those I just knew the name of. I collected all references to punk I came across, in newspapers, books, ads, interviews, television, films, thanks lists on record inner sleeves etc. Compilations was a gas. Even just the thought of compiling more than 1 punk artist on 1 album was a thrill in my teenage lobotomized mind, and I bought as many compilations as possible, often preferring a V/A before a classic album by a single artist. These are some of the compilations that had a crucial effect on my former punk rock years:

* Nickname of TROND NÖRBECH, my best friend and the other half of the BADH team.

Burning Ambitions: A History Of Punk

(Cleopatra Rec,1984)

Volume 1 out of 3.This double piece of vinyl has a special place in my punk rock heart. I found this treasure in this lame secondhand store in my hometown, right after my conversion to punk. Contains a fab but rather strange compilation of mostly 1st generation UK punk artist, minus the biggest names SEX PISTOLS,THE CLASH,THE JAM,SKIDS and SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES, some UK oi / hardcore punk / new wave bands and 2 US faves: BUZZCOCKS,THE FALL, WIRE, ATV,THE 101´ERS,999,THE ADVERTS,THE STRANGLERS,THE VIBRATORS , X-RAY SPEX, THE SAINTS,UK SUBS,THE DAMNED,COCKNEY REJECTS, THE EXPLOITED, DEAD KENNEDYS, JOHNNY THUNDERS AND THE HEARTBREAKERS, KILLING JOKE, THE BOOMTOWN RATS, ADAM AND THE ANTS, DISORDER, GBH, ANGELIC UPSTARTS, THE PARTISANS, VICE SQUAD, ATTILA THE STOCKBROKERS,THE LURKERS, SPIZZ ENERGIE, SWELL MAPS, BLITZ, THE RUTS, SHAM 69, ANTI-PASTI, DAVE GOODMAN AND FRIENDS, EATER, GENERATION X, THE BUSINESS and SLAUGHTER AND THE DOGS. There are of course, with a pretension of compiling "a history of punk", many names missing, mostly US but also UK acts like SUBWAY SECT, JOHNNY MOPED, STINKY TOYS, CRASS, CONFLICT, DISCHARGE, SUBHUMANS to name a few. And where the hell is NEW YORK DOLLS, RAMONES, THE VOIDOIDS, PATTI SMITH, BLACK FLAG, BAD BRAINS, MISFITS, THE GERMS, BLONDIE, WAYNE COUNTY, THE DICTATORS,FEAR, THE DICKIES, MINOR THREAT, SSD, D.O.A, SOCIAL DISTORTION etc?? I remember me and my best Dog were so excited when we checked it out at my place for the very first time that, in order to check out as many tracks as possible before our volley ball practise, we played the 2 first sides on 45 instead of 33. We were 12, goddammit. Eager for more. Non stop hunger for new punk tunes.

Live At The Roxy London Wc2

(Harvest Records,1977)

Legendary live-compilation with UK punk legends such as BUZZCOCKS, SLAUGHTER AND THE DOGS, JOHNNY MOPED,WIRE,THE UNWANTED,THE ADVERTS, EATER and X-RAY SPEX. I bought my original pressing in a secondhand record store in Oslo, and found the signature of Norwegian guitar hero Petter Baarli, best known from boogie outfit BACKSTREET GIRLS, the 2 Norwegian 1st generation punk bands SLIPS and ZIGGY & THE RHYTHM BULLDOGS but also toured a lot with JOHNNY THUNDERS the years before he died. This live album includes, in between tracks, recordings from a mic that was made available to the colorful poging,spitting, vomiting audience, you hear the mention of SID VICIOUS ( "Is Sid Vicious here tonight?") and JOHNNY MOPED has some hilarious quotes, revealing the true UK working class nature of the man, and POLY STYRENE of X-RAY SPEXs "oh bondage up yours...1..2..3..4"

The Rare Stuff

(Harvest Records,1978)

Even when listening to it 25 years after, this record rises sky above the lot. Premium original (post)punk and new wave, with important names like THE SAINTS,WIRE,THE FLYS and RICH KIDS. THE SHIRTS and BANNED don´t reach the highest league in my book, but still by all means enjoyable. THE SAINTS "Demolition Girl" and THE FLYS "Love And A Molotov Cocktail" are personal winners. The cover art work is also top notch, what a good idea, the illustrated leather jacket with band pins spread around, for a compilation.

Pærepunk

(Kong Pære,1979)

Classic and, as a collector item, rare Danish compilation from 1979. LOST KIDS,THE SODS, ELEKTROCHOCK, SLIM, KLICHÉ, THE BRATS, DREAM POLICE and NO KNOX. Important release for me and my buddies in the first formative years, especially in relation to our first band BELSENFANGAN ( SURE OPPSTØT ). We covered 2 of the songs on this Danish compilation, LOST KIDS´ "Asocial" (in fact more or less "Mongoloid" by DEVO) and SLIMs "Fuck The Queen". "Pærepunk" was originally a punk festival in Aarhus partly responsible for establishing a Danish punk scene on an early stage compared to the other Scandinavian countries. HARLEY FLANEGAN of STIMULATORS/CRO-MAGS,who is half Danish, was actually there during the festival in 1978(at an age of 11), or so the rumor says. Other trivia worth mentioning: SLIM always performed with a stripper, who later got out due to the other members hardcore drug habits. SODS changed name to SORT SOL, today one of the most established conventional pop rock bands in Denmark, still fronted by the charismatic one armed man, STEEN JØRGENSEN. THE BRATS, by far being the band that stands out on this particular record, turned out as the most successful of them all, when half of the line up ended up in Heavy Metal Giants MERCIFUL FATE. These days, my faves are "Skrid",LOST KIDS, both KLICHÉ tracks and "Bubbles", DREAM POLICE.

Rodney On The Roq

(Posh Boy,1980)

Crucial as can be, containing all time faves as AGENT ORANGE: "Bloodstains", ADOLESCENTS:"Amoeba", CIRCLE JERKS:"Wild In the Street", BLACK FLAG "No Values" etc etc. Other artists on the compilation are no less legends, U.X.A,KLAN,RIK L RIK,CROWD, DAVID MICROWAVE,THE NUNS, FENDER BUDDIES,VIDIOTS, SIMPLETONES and NEW YORK. I think this was the one which,singlehandedly,brought me into Cali/O.C punk rock. Compiled by a the almighty RODNEY BINGENHEIMER, who was responsible for giving these artists air time on his famous KROQ program Rodney On the ROQ.

Carry On Oi

(Captain Oi Rec,1981)

This was the first of many oi! compilations that I bought throughout my teenage years, and is probably the one of them that is least diminished by erosion of time. Obvious UK oi classics by THE BUSINESS,THE PARTISANS, BLITZ,LAST RESORT,INFA RIOT,RED ALERT,PETER AND THE TEST TUBE BABIES,THE EJECTED, GONADS, 4 SKINS,GARRY JOHNSON,Oi THE CHOIR,Oi THE COMRADE and JJ ALL STARS. "Suburban Rebels" by THE BUSINESS was(and still is) my special pick. Compiled by oi general (and CRASS hate object) GARRY BUSHELL.

Stars On Thrash

(Roadrunner Rec,1988)

After 3 years of a steady purist diet of ´77 punk, my rural punk crew finally got more in touch with music from our own time, hardcore punk,death/thrash/speed metal,grind core,noise etc. This record absolutely had a part in that process, opening our minds and ears to artists which later became big faves of ours, such as SLAYER, DIRTY ROTTEN IMBECILS, STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH and MUCKY PUP. Other featured artists are FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, PESTILENCE, TOXIK, PARADOX, ACROPHET,GOTHIC SLAM,SACRED REICH, ZNOWHITE,KAT,ATROPHY and HADES.

THIS IS RADIO CRASS

2009-12-06T01:25:00.008+01:00

A certain summer trip to Oslo in 1989, blowing all money on records at Blitz and a few other sources of underground vinyl in Oslo,brought along a record that would set my head and life on goddamn fire. Feeding Of The 5000 by CRASS replaced my nihilistic aspirations as a "punk" in the classical sense with the thought of punk rock as something completely new in comparison to the traditional Dionysian cultus of rock and roll.

The new breed that came with CRASS took the idea of "do it yourself" to another level of involvement and seriousness in meaning and praxis. When BUZZCOCKS gave out their Spiral Scratch EP in 1976 on their own label, it was just in lack of a better alternative for an unknown amateur act. If EMI had offered them a contract already at that point of the bands career I m certain they had been in for the offer. They had the same ambitions,long back in their Manucian minds,as The STONES,THE KINKS or THE BEATLES,they wanted the glory, the fame of a rock n roll star. As simple as that.

CRASS at 1977,a Hippy camp that picked up the latest flavor and cut their hair and turned electric,redefined the meaning of punk by an infuse of the radical spirit into the vacuum and the void left behind by the hedonistic ramblings of the great rock n roll swindle. Punk,according to CRASS, turned out to be just another trend, controlled by the same major labels as the previous hype of rock and roll, just another object incorporated into the culture industry. Same Shit New Wrapping(YOUNG LORDS).They took the principal,ideologically legitimate,stance of an independent artist, cutting the lines to the control tower of the established music business and major labels, releasing records in their own way and on their own label, even constructing,creating a new language in visuals and blatant sloganism. "Anarchy" was now way more than just a word applied to stir up the conventions. The anarchism of CRASS was a true adoption of the ideology formulated by Bakunin or Prodhon a century before.

In effect it was the dynamic duo Penny Rimbaud and Steve Ignorant, their anarcho syndicalist interplay of working class anger and middle class intellectual activism, that created the vitality in their music. It is a rougher,faster and angrier voice than the cockney sneer of SEX PISTOLS, in sound way more avant garde than the mock n roll conventions of SEX PISTOLS. The CRASS collective quite soon proved themselves being far more interested in politics than creative artistic (counter)strategies, typical of the one who dares to wake the ghosts of historical avant-garde.

CRASS formulated a once again surrender to ideological absolutism,a radical bastard child of the same Socialist origin as Communism, in the shape of traditional political ideology of Anarchism. Together with an experimental hard edged music, filthy language and disturbing collages all over their record artwork, they narrowed down the career opportunities of CRASS as a rock act in late 70s UK music business. They swore the oath to the solitary dwellings of the underground artist, a youth quake tagged and passed on as "non mainstream" or "against the grain". "I wanna be the minority", not sang to the US MAJORITY like GREEN DAY two decades later, but screamed and cursed out by the minority to the minority.

Even though they looked like crypto-fascists in their black dresses and militant touch in line and accessory,the substance reveals more of a traditional leftist approach,the counter cultural parameters defined by beatnik, summer of love and the´68 student riots in Paris. "Once a hippy, always a hippy" as an answer to the "Never trust a hippy" dictate of classic punk. The community laid out a never ending quest for nirvana, an Utopian solution of "anarchy and freedom" in combination with a hard roughly cut amateur rock. The result is one that attracts and seduces rather than offends or bores.Consolidated with an established ideology and with huge sources of energy and rage,CRASS was searching for a new and fresh direction in the afterglow of the punk explosion of ´77,desperately trying to save themselves from an atmosphere that evoked a feeling of a "rock n roll suicide", to quote the man the name CRASS came from anyway ("Ziggy Stardust",DAVID BOWIE).

CRASS also featured an outstanding visual/graphical battery. It took heavy cues from both the agit chic line of the UK punk style originators Jamie Reid and Malcolm Mclarhan/Vivienne Westwood , but took on a language of ad hoc stencil print that nailed them much more to the S.I/propaganda form and terminology than the unholy trinity of the brilliant media chaos behind the bravery of PISTOLS would have allowed themselves.

Gee Vaucher,who designed the package of CRASS,glided more towards parody and plagiarism. A black and white Richard Hamilton sort of way, rising the temperature from vital artistic experimentalist (also evident in Jamie Reids graphics for SEX PISTOLS),to a far more political(dis)charged form in image and jargon.

After seeing the poster included in The Feeding Of The 5000, that torn off burned out hand of a solider stuck in the bared wired battlefield with the message "your country needs you", the laughter has grown sour. That flirt with propaganda and stark social realism/photo journalism isn t funny anymore. At least not if you add the lyrical attack on everybody ever linked to punk as music,generation,style or "attitude":

"Steven Jones, you're napalm If you're so pretty vacant, why do you smarm? Patti Smith, you're napalm, your write with your hand But it's Rimbaud's arm".

In fact written by the arm of a rhetorical brain calling himself "Penny Rimbaud". One can perhaps sense an obnoxious envy of the nature of a true genius that PATTI SMITH shared with the poetical prodigy of Arthur Rimbaud. In spite of the naive but sincere political engagement found in THE CLASH camp to their last day, the judgment is nonetheless merciless in it s arguments of "selling out" to CBS. As they later state on The Stations Of The Crass album:

"The name is CRASS not CLASH"

WHO IS YOUR BODY?

2009-12-02T06:44:00.028+01:00

The official business philosophy of ISKCON explains how that their global distribution of their books [1] is the work of a good Samaritan. A deed in the tradition of Jesus feeding the 5000. Only this is"spiritual food", just as important for the soul as the bread for the body. They barely mentioned that this activity also happens to be the main source of financial income. Not thanks to brilliant sale routines or outstanding product quality, but rather just the lucky result of monks approaching people in streets,parks and airports. Fortunately for the Krishnas, some of them ended up accepting their books for some nickles, just to get rid of them as quick as possible. The books are probably never read in 9 out of 10 cases, if not dumped in the nearest trash can. It s basically the same act of pity, the same that makes you spare some change for a beggar on the corner or the mentally ill performing xmas carols in the shopping mall.

[1] Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam, Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Higher Taste etc.

The general fundamental idea behind their design for life is the philosophical notion of that "YOU ARE NOT THIS BODY". Humans are trapped in a world of maya, the sanskrit word for illusion,a material existence determined to follow the rules of the physical world. You are born,you live and you die. In the Veda,Hindu and Buddhist tradition this remains a never ending cycle of reincarnation. If you reach the level of human existence, according to your karma in previous life, there is possible to break this chain of death and rebirth by wising up, using your intelligence to reach beyond what s visible for the eye, engage in bhakti yoga,a transcendental meditation where the key concept is to recite the holy name in a mantra that will get you out of it and "back to Godhead",as they say. Chant "Hare Krishna" and you ll have your share of nirvana. So they abandon all concerns of what most people know as reality,from family life to material joy, prior to this uncertain promise of an afterlife with the blue god

Let s go back to the argumentation once again: If you re intelligent, you ll see "the truth", clear as the day: you are not your flesh and blood. It s an illusion, an illusion named reality. Without committing to a broader discussion on the construction of the human soul,there s at least space enough to take the following example under consideration: Say you re a child, who grows up without any notion or concept of an abstract soul and hence not familiar with neither the Vedas,the bible, Platon,Descartes,Kant or Freud. With the coming of age the real intelligence will in fact land at the opposite view of the Hare Krishna. "I AM THIS BODY"

Any other explanation requires you to, as Danish philosopher Søren Kirkegaard says, take a step out from the cliff, in this case the body. Intelligent choice,Prabhu, to build your god damn temple in thin air instead of the only cliff you can be certain exists for a fact. Personally, I think humanity would be far better off if we move away from the metaphysical schizophrenic project, in religion as well as psychology, concerned with the task of extracting the soul fromits´corpus. The split into different non corporeal abstract entities slowly alienates the life of the mind from the life itself. And life is,like it or not,THE BODY.

BRENDAN MULLEN R.I.P

2009-11-24T21:46:00.086+01:00

On October the 12th, 2009, the US punk legend Brendan Mullen died of a massive stroke. I got my last FB message from Brendan only weeks before his death and could´t help getting a strange sensation,though I never met him real life. Brendan was born in Scotland but moved to Los Angeles, which was really fortunate for the growing punk scene in the city those days.His club,"the Masque",which opened the doors in 1977,was highly responsible for launching the careers of many pioneering US punk outfits such as my all time faves,THE GERMS,X,GO GO´s,WEIRDOS, SKULLS,CONTROLLERS and more.

You can see him, almost 30 years younger, in the 1986 movie of X, "X- The Unheard Music".Mullen also made brief appearances in We Jam Econo-The Story of the MinutemenPunk's Not Dead(2007). and

He was the author of books on LA Punk,such as We Got The Neutron Bomb(2001) together with Marc Spitz,Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of Darby Crash and The Germs(2002) coauthored with THE GERMS drummer Don Bolles and Adam Parfrey. Later on his also wrote about yet another heroe of mine,Perry Farrell (JANE´S ADDICTION), in the 2006 publication Whores:An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction. The last book he gave out, together with Roger Gastman and Kristine McKenna,was Live at the Masque:Nightmare in Punk Alley(2007).

COSTAL BREAKOUT: THE MIXES

2009-11-23T22:19:00.053+01:00

My old hometown gang had a reunion last summer in Christiansin, the first gathering since 1992. The music nerd section, counting 3 persons, was of course well prepared, with pod casts compiled late at night,with the same intensity and obsession as with the mixtapes recorded on cheap stereo racks with double tape players in the 80s.

I was the most dedicated and extreme follower of popular culture and punk back then and i have my reasons for assuming that i still am. I simply couldn t compress the long list of tracks of must-haves down to one single mix, so i had to make 2 different pods; each representing significant and major events and periodes of our sick romance with punk rock. In genre terminology and furthur soon turning into hard core,grind core,death metal,thrash metal,speed metal and black metal

I made the 2 mixes strictly out of material that was important back then. Most in regrads to individual cultivation of a taste young at heart and with a curiousity beyond the extreme point "X" in the cycle of search & destroy. We were a tiny circle one of bored teeage kids on the north western coast of Norway,equally eager to learn and explore as to burn and bury. Descending from the spotted grave, rising from the ashes just to raise hell one more time. The game of ripping it up,just to start all over again.

But every gang has its´common ground of anthems and singalongs and I did my best to nail those powerful tunes in the list of my pods. The first was named after a most important BLACK FLAG album release, but at the same time a name that also recognizes our virgin take on punk, a purist revival of classic punk rock, a "1977 Injection"(DAGGERS), of course being totally misplaced in both time and space.

The minerature punk explosion of 1985 in the outskirts of Norway was initiated by "Kill The Poor" by DEAD KENNEDYS and soon other obvious classic punk records by SEX PISTOLS,THE CLASH,THE BUZZCOCKS,THE JAM,RAMONES,SHAM 69 and Norwegian 1st generation punk outfits KJØTT,OSLO BØRS,PINK DIRT,WANNSKRÆKK, LILIEDUGG, HÆRVERK etc. My first period of punk fandom hence had a strict focus on the historical classic incarnation of punk, revival of the dawn of the genre and style.

Of course we were completely out of step with the zeitgeist of our own time, even the contemporary version of hardcore punk. My mind was all about one chord wonders,safety pins,swastikas,circle-a´s,encyclopdial daydreaming through obsessive seanses of vinyl & tape madness and black & white photography of punk icons, from the staged simplistic perfection of gender bending rock iconography seen in the cover shot for PATTIE SMITHs Horses by Robert Mapplethorne, to the random snapshots that actually captured the whole spectacle in flesh and blood, though in a two dimensional secondhand daylight version on celloid paper, think of Mick Rock and his immortal live exposures of the STOOGES in concert(chaos,that is). Or Lenny Lense, the poging female punk rocker handed a camera in very often the right, crucial moments of the concerts and the highlighted events during punk history. Soon available with link on site for download:

THE FIRST FOUR YEARS

DEAD KENNEDYS Kill The Poor SEX PISTOLS New York ( The Dolls ) THE CLASH Clash City Rocker SHAM 69 Questions & Answers BUZZCOCKS Boredom RAMONES Commando THE RUTS In A Rut THE UNDERTONES Hypnotised THE JAM In The City COCKNEY REJECTS Flares & Slippers GBH Drug Party At 526 CIRCLE JERKS Wild In The Streets JOHNNY THUNDERS AND THE HEARTBREAKERS Chinese Rocks LOST KIDS Asocial LILIEDUGG Jesus UK SUBS Crash Course HÆRVÆRK Produkt Av 70åra THE VIBRATORS Sulphate WANNSKRÆKK AG3 SLIM Fuck The King SØT HÆVN Heks På Skaugum THE ADVERTS Drowning Men DREAM POLICE Bubbles THE DAMNED I Fall ATV Life NORSKE GUTTER Mamma Mannen Ga Meg Gonoré BLITZ Someone S Gonna Die Tonight THE EXPLOITED Dead Cities THE SAINTS (I m) Stranded EATER I Don t Need It KLICHÉ Farvel STIFF LITTLE FINGERS Suspect Device WIRE 1 2 X U OSLO BØRS Råtne Guder X-RAY SPEX Identity KAARE & PARTIET Be En Bønn 999 I m Alive EBBA GRÖN We re Only In It For The Drugs ANFALL Tvangsinnlagt ANGELIC UPSTARTS Lust For Glory KJØTT Nei Nei Nei

FASTER AND LOUDER

CRASS Do They Owe Us A Living? BETONGHYSTERIA Snuten Kommer SUBHUMANS Minority DISCHARGE Hear Nothing See Nothing Say NothinCONFLICT Increase The Pressure MINOR THREAT Straight Edge UNIFORM CHOICE A Choice SS DECONTROL GlueDYS More Than Fashion HOGANS HEROES Built To Last D.O.A Prisoner STENGTE DØRER Levereglene MISFITS We Bite SUICIDAL TENDENCIES Suicidal Failure LAZY COWGIRLS Goddamn Bottle WARZONE Don t Forget The Streets Don t Forget The Struggle DATA MORGANA Hvem Vant Krigen? AGNOSTIC FRONT Crucified MUCKY PUP Life 4 Def ANTHRAX I Am The Law STUPIDS So Much Fun BANNLYST Medalje Eller Dom GORILLA BISCUITS Sitting Around At Home' TOTALITÄR Ta re I Skitan LIFE S BLOOD Not For The Weak SO MUCH HATE Skyggesiden POSSESSED Swing Of The Ax DRI Violent Pacification NAPALM DEATH The Kill GANG GREEN Alcohol CRO-MAGS Sign Of The Times YOUTH DEFENCE LEAUGE Skinhead 88 METALLICA Last Caress DEATH Baptized In Blood M.O.D No Glove No Love KREATOR After The Attack SLAPSHOT Step On It SLAYER Raining Blood S.O.D Kill Yourself SIDE BY SIDE Side By Side CELTIC FROST Visual Aggression YOUTH OF TODAY Slow Down

NAZI PUNK

2009-11-13T19:03:00.009+01:00

I recently came across long gone punk tee s, telling the visual story of my youth rebellion and coming of age. The oldest of the tees I found, is a standard black & white tee, showing a stencil print of a fist smashing the swastika and the German slogan "Gegen Nazis"("Against Nazism"). At the age of 14 and determined to move on, exploring the world of ideas and dive into whatever turned my interest on, it seemed like the definitive must-have for an aspiring PC anarcho punk in the year of 1987. A young rebel that wanted to wear on sleeve his sudden departure from one extreme to the other.

2 years earlier, at the age of 13, I got briefly into the dark blue wing of political ideology, eventually pushing it further into the brown corners of that section of political(non)thinking. I got expelled for 3 days at school, for reading Adolf Hitlers “Mein Kampf” during class and wearing a Luft Waffe pin on my denim jacket. In fact, the very first lyrics I ever wrote, for my first punk band BELSENFANGAN, opened with a statement that would make most punks see red. Except the very few of them patronizing the works of SKREWDRIVER or NO REMORSE.:

"I am the black fascist, don t need nobody else, all that matters is a world of myself".

On top of this, the song I applied these words to was not our own composition but a number of a band that during their entire career worked hard to assimilate the most black genre in popular music, reggae and dub, as well as headlining the "Rock Against Racism" festival in UK in the late 70s: "Clash City Rockers" by THE CLASH. I guess I wanted a white riot of my own.

Changes came fast in those days and I remember me and my 2 best friends, Mad Dog and Tømme, actually took the giant step from national socialism to anti-national socialism within 2 weeks of Xmas vacation. We decided, in plenum, to wise up, and to get rid of one common extreme in prior to the other. Soon I wore my DEAD KENNEDYS "Nazi Punks Fuck Off " badge on my military green park and organized demo s against apartheid and racial discrimination.

CORROSION OF CONFORMITEE

2009-11-13T01:28:00.006+01:00

The typical fashion of the straight edge hardcore scene back in 1992-94 was LARGE. If not in sales numbers then most definitely in size. The kids enlarged into extremes, oversizing everything at least 2 numbers. My natural size was “M”(and still is, you fat motherfuckers), but in those days I barely bought one single item that wasn t “XL”.

Within the still rather marginal transatlantic community of straight edge kids in this period, there was impossible to talk fashion without mentioning the influence from skateboarding. The reason was as simple as most kids with a liking for hardcore, especially those not spending their time getting fucked or fucked up, also had a skateboard. Or he used to or pretended to. . I guess we looked like hardcore whiggers, not a pretty sight for contemporary eyes.

To zoom in the detail of great importance for the sXe kid, inflicted with both fashion and politics: the selection of tee s ordered overseas was based on 2 clear preferences: Favorite US bands, old school as new school, and shirts promoting sXe or vegetarianism.


In 1992-95 the sXe tee often featured colorful illustrations in natural palettes and a darker, perhaps more Gothic, taste in font and motives.
This "new school" branch of the 3 generation of straight edge seemed to seek away from the grasp of bold fonts in clean cut college design, echoing the simple musical formula of straight edge hardcore.It all drifted more into a flirtation with all kinds of metal;Slow pounding songs with pitched down instruments and a total playtime actually passing 2 minutes, probably taking in a bit of those days pre nu metal, like PANTERA, as well as some of the symphonic desperation of NEUROSIS and the first stuff that came to represent the doom / drone genre; CATHEDRAL,MY DYING PRIDE and semi electronica in the vein of SCORN and PITCH SHIFTER.Black metal should also be mentioned as a influence.

MOLDE BLACK CIRCLE

2009-11-13T00:55:00.013+01:00

BETTER WATCH YOUR FAX IF YOU DIAL MOLDE!*

* There was a saying among the LO members in the wake of the BIOHAZARD / NY macho core hype around ´93: "Better watch your back if you come to MOLDE"

My old band LASH OUT was signed and released on STORMSTRIKE Rec, run by the sympathic German hardcore kid, JOJO. Johannes Schrammel, the Emmendingen wolf,  in the year of 1994, seemed to be in the middle of a transition, from the stranglehold of straight edge to the dark realms of metal. He was not the first and he´s certainly not the last. Still dwelling in a shadow of doubt, wondering if his Satanic flirtation was a bit too extreme for the framework he was operating within. After all we re talking about a cross point of PC, asceticism, moral absolutism and a positivism, a far cry from the so called  "evil" core of Black Metal.  Instead of running the risk of loosing his integrity and reputation in his native hardcore scene, he slightly overdid it to secure the backdoor of a joke, and who can argue with that? The father of the bassist.

Even though still claiming the vegan edge, Jojo, definitely talked more about BURZUM, wolfs, witches, occult circles, pentagrams than the usual cliches of compassionate living, environmentalism, tofu or skin imitations. So the tone in the original fax from Stormstrike HQ to LASH OUT, was one that we had grown familiar with. The heading "AVANTI SATAN", came as no surprise to us, coming from that person, and we laughed it off once again. What was more of a problem, was that the only fax number available to us at the time, was the fax machine at the office of Lauritz Godøy, Håvard LASH OUTs dad, the local cultural department, where he served as the chief. Probably a role model for the rest of his working stock. Lauritz was in general more supportive of his sons hobbies than parents most, helping us out with legal advice on the signing of contracts etc, but I guess this episode was a heavy test of his love to the band.

Deep within, we probably felt the same attraction to the black flame as Jojo, but perhaps showing it off much more in terms of music. LASH OUT was at this point a band with a political and ethical agenda, 4 out 5 being straight edge and 5 out of 5 vegan/vegetarian, only listening to KISS, SLAYER, IRON MAIDEN, KING DIAMOND, BURZUM and DARKTHRONE in the privacy of our boy rooms. This was at the height of the media hype of Black Metal in Norway, with churches burning down and even murder and torture. LASH OUT was thus bound to take a stance against all this officially, but speaking for myself, I was of course nevertheless very fascinated and also a big fan of the music.

Like the jargon of antichrist that lurked underneath the alphabet of the dark prince of Emmendingen, the spell of heavy metal was apparent in the music of LASH OUT from the very beginning. This tendency increased by every release, in lyrical themes and moods, as well as guitar riffs and vocals

On the 1994 Stormstrike Records release Worn Path by LASH OUT, you find substantial traces of the works of Satan, ermm, heavy metal, in the riffs and guitar solos, and likewise in a title such as "Evening Shade" or the Black Metal touch in the vocals of the same track and also "Portrait Of A Serial Killer". The epic arrangements of symphonic desperation , rather than the typical anger of hardcore punk, bares resemblance to the contemporary doom metal of CATHEDRAL,TESTAMENT, NEUROSIS, SAINT VITUS and the semi industrial droning of PITCH SHIFTER,SCORN and MINISTRY.

You may compare it to the influences often name dropped by LO in those days INTEGRITY, BURN, UNBROKEN, SNAP CASE, EARTH CRISIS, MEAN SEASON and 108, LASH OUT still had a genuine and unique sound, a take of crossover hardcore and metal that rather followed the left hand path of the sabbatical goat than the raging fists sporting the "X". No wonder they ended up as a purist heavy metal act, leather pants and castrato refrains.

THUNDERBOLT: Hønefoss Black Circle. (trying themselves out in a IRON
MAIDEN "Piece Of Mind" setting.

I eventually founded a project that probably could pass as "dark","pseudo occult" or even "quasi Satanic". Reminding us of the fact stated in the Apocalypse Now sample on LASH OUT 1995 album What Absence Yields:

"Under every depth, a lower deep opens".

STATIONS OF THE CROSS

2009-11-12T18:23:00.034+01:00

The term straight edge were brought to the outer limits in every thinkable direction. Different schools of the edge emerged;"self edge", "vegetarian edge","vegan edge","Communist edge","Krisha edge", "Christian edge","Buddhist edge","hard edge,"hard line". The last reference, "hard line", finally brought us the last station of the crass: "Muslim edge". From 1988 and further definitions and implications of the term straight edge were brought to the outer limits in every thinkable direction. Different schools of the edge emerged;"self edge", "vegetarian edge","vegan edge","Communist edge","Krisha edge", "Christian edge","Buddhist edge","hard edge,"hard line". The last reference, "hard line", finally brought us the last station of the crass: "Muslim edge" .

"Hard Line" was a hot topic in the early 90s hardcore punk scene. The Hard Line movement was an extreme fraction of the sub division that crawled out of the straight edge culture. More or less formulated by Sean Muttaqi outta VEGAN REICH, who also ran the label "Hard line Records" as well as serving the function as chief editor of the official hardline mouthpiece,"Vanguard".

Muttaqi, who came from punk and sXe,already familiar with the concepts of vegetarianism/ veganism and soberness, had the ambitions of a revolutionary, a subcultural pioneer bringing along great reforms to the movement and the pseudo-religion, launching the new flavour of the year in contemporary hardcore punk culture. Just like Iggy Pop,Richard Hell,Darby Crash,HR and Ian Mckaye did in respective ways for the expansion of the term and genre

VEGAN REICH was formed in 1987 and the first time I heard them was on the "The A.L.F Is Watching And There s No Place To Hide" compilation in 1988.Together with STATEMENT, NATURECORE,BEEFEATER and the crust gone mainstream curse CHUMBAWAMBA. Muttaqis association with the UK punks crowd probably set him in contact with Rat outta STATEMENT an later UNBORN, a bloke who probably read CLASS WAR and DIRECT ACTION, was an animal liberation activist who also had a huge passion for CRASS, DISCHARGE,CONFLICT and MINOR THREAT. He coined the term/concept "vegan straight edge", although didn t feel for a crusade. But, as MORRISSEY puts it in "What Difference Does It Make?:

"...the devil will find work for idle hands to do..."

and if not work than at least a couple of x´d up hands.

Steve Muttaqi adopted the term and concept, the 2 headed moral monster,and incorporated it in his broader sociocultural task of reshaping the harbour of his native hardcore punk scene, and founded another bastion of extreme thought. He wrote down a manifesto, fused the "vegan edge" with some deep ecology, militant activism, biocentricism, pro-choice and Abrahamic religion, put out a label as well as "Vanguard" . The latter was the official "hardline" press organ or mouthpiece, which Muttaqi served as a chief editor for. A new "subculture within the subculture", sort of.

All official bulletins had the same, well versed and super sharp in the rhetoric, language of a manifesto,claiming no authority or moral superior voice."Above The Law", to use RAID once again. declared in If people refused to change their cruel way of life, exploitation the soil, the animals and other humans, action had to be taken by someone. Why not an animal activist, looking like a crew cut college boy, hooded and with a gun in his hands, as you can spot on the Above The Law album cover.

The bulletins give me much the same impression of a temper and a radical will to put action into words as the official RAF press bulletins which followed every official event of terror and death in the heyday of the extreme leftist group. They spent page after page justifying their violent schedule of bombs going off in supermarkets, killing cops or "pigs", politicians, union bosses, finance elites etc with political arguments grounded on socialist ideology, claiming to be some sort of a western chapter of the Chinese red army or the urban guerrilla of the forthcoming "international communist revolution".

Of course the package, like in "communist edge" and "krishna edge", was a commitment far too big and serious for the punk crowd in the long run.Nevertheless, Muttaqi and some other guys continued moving on, until officially submitting a full conversion to Islam."Vanguard" changed name to "Ahl-i Allah"("People Of Allah").

The tee under is however not linked to VR or hardline in any traceable form. But they share the same willingness to use violence and direct action in their holy war, remembering us of the fact that....

STEPS TOWARDS CHANGE

2009-11-01T02:01:00.035+01:00

Fanzine

1992-93

# 1

Me and the drummer of LASH OUT,Vegard Waske,had this zine called STEPS TOWARDS CHANGE, put together during our heyday of idealism and political interest. Our reason for doing it, covering up for the hyper active urge to constantly seek new sensations, was mostly to promote PC, Straight Edge and vegetarianism/veganism. Perhaps a late reaction to the 80s emphasis on surface and form. We longed for some substance of belief,a task which of course turned out to be difficult,if not impossible,in the long run. A postmodern enlightenment, more or less burning down to ashes,completely in vain.That was the beauty of it.

We both studied Political Science at university,reading John Stuart Mill,Karl Marx and Max Weber. This inspired us most definitely, in addition to TONS of fanzines from a to z, that means from crust to Krishna in the ´92 punk zine scene. Of course Maximum Rock N Roll, Flipside, Heartattack,Suburban Voice, Thrasher,Transworld,Direkt Aktion,Class War and more.

We founded LASH OUT 2 months earlier,rehearsing like maniacs in the stinky cellar at KULTURELT ALTERNATIV in Molde, and did, as far as I can remember, 2 shows with LO, one at Goma Aktivitetshus in Christiansin together with LIFE..BUT HOW TO LIVE IT?, and another one at UFFA in Trondheim. So starting up a fanzine was also a good thing in regards to promote the band in every possible sense, getting in touch with people in the obscure global community of hardcore and punk.

I think it s fair to mention another motivation for starting up a zine of our own: the privilege of advanced tapes and even some official vinyl releases,fanzines etc finding its way to our Norwegian homes, in an excuse of a review. This made a steady going stream, bombing our mail boxes with envelopes scribbled down with "Xs and"Go Vegetarian"s, sporting stamps rubbed in with soap, a trick that made it possible to reuse them. Perfect for a poor student trying to keep in touch with 50 + punk pen pals all over the world.

We only managed to put out one issue, but I remember it as one hell of an issue, thick as a brick, packed with interviews SHELTER, REFUSED, ONWARD, BORN AGAINST, LIFE BUT HOW TO LIVE IT?, some columns and tons of reviews. All spread out in a totally messy and chaotic layout,at best described as an influence from the contemporary mail art trend.

Unfortunately, I can t find any issues of my own, and if Vegard don t have any either, there s a slight chance for this project went down in history without any proofs or documentary left behind for the nerd to gorge in.. Clue anyone? I have a vague memory of some legendary silly pics of myself, serious as hell, with Champion hood on and clenched x´d fists..